


Hometown Boy

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate (1994), Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Adultery, Angst, Episode Related, First Time, M/M, Pre Canon, Season 1, canon character death, season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-15
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:27:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 62,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This series begins before the first mission to Abydos, when Jack is on leave in Chicago and falls into a one-night-stand with Daniel. Each part stands alone, but continues through the events of the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sweet Home Chicago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before the first Abydos mission, Jack is on leave in Chicago.

It was a mistake -- coming back, at this time, after this mission, to Chicago.

But going straight home to Winter Park would, Jack felt, have been an even bigger mistake.

He hadn't wanted to go right back there after the busted op, after the depressing debrief followed by the futile, officially ordered R&amp;R he'd gone through the motions of taking, in Germany. See, the thing was, nothing official could fix this. Probably no amount of leave could, either. Not really. It would take a lot of plain old time, and beer, and trout fishing, to take the taste of what had gone down in Pakistan out of his mouth.

Charlie would help. Charlie always helped everything, and he didn't even know it. And Sara would help; eventually.

But not yet.

So, he'd called her from Germany; told her his uncle was back home at his parents' for a visit, which was completely true, and that he was going to hitch a flight there first. She'd understood. At least she'd said she had.

But Chicago had been a mistake. It hadn't helped at all.

It was a stilted, formal sort of family reunion that only served, Jack realized, to put off the more difficult one for a little longer, while making not a damn bit of difference to his mood. So after dinner the second night, he'd spun some fiction about meeting the guys downtown, kissed his mom, and bailed, driving his dad's old truck.

This bar was one he remembered, because it was close to the ball field, but things had changed in this neighborhood. Changed a lot. Or, he had. It had only been six or seven years since he'd been in here last, but it seemed like a much younger crowd, now, all college kids, and the music blasting out over the same peeling speakers was now full of computerized instruments. Nothing like he remembered. Well, it could be worse. At least it wasn't country.

He'd drunk one beer, ordered before he'd fully taken in the changes to the place, and then he'd ordered another, because someone caught his attention, which was why he'd come out. Hoping something, anything, would.

So, sipping his second beer, Jack found himself watching the long-haired, enthusiastic young guy who was holding forth at a table between the bar, where Jack sat, and the barely occupied dance-floor. It looked like a very academic crowd at that table -- lots of jeans and those broomstick skirts Sara liked, but also plenty of wellworn suit jackets. Lots of eyeglasses and earnestness and long dangly silver earrings that hinted vaguely of Central America. None of the women at the table, as far as he could see, was wearing makeup.

They were all celebrating something; hard to say what, but the red-haired guy who had caught Jack's eye kept getting bought rounds of drinks, and accepting, with a very attractive blush, the toasts of his compadres. He had a square jaw, and a ready smile, and yet his smile seemed tentative; the most ephemeral thing about him. It came and went, like clouds over the sun. He was slim, and handsome, and happy without being rowdy, and as the conversation ebbed and flowed around him he seemed most interested in the people, in their words, and not on getting drunk and how that made you feel when you were celebrating. Occasionally he'd get on a roll about something and talk, at length, and gesture, waving long-fingered hands or tapping on the table to make his point. His hair would get in his eyes and he'd impatiently smooth it back. And he had a gorgeous mouth. A kissable mouth.

If Kawalsky had been here, Jack would have felt obliged to focus more on the curly-haired blonde on Red's left, who was hanging on the guy's every word. Or pretending to. There was something about her demeanor that told Jack she was more interested in how people were seeing her, than she was in him, even though it was clearly her boyfriend's party; she was a little too self-conscious for Jack's taste. It spoiled any spontaneity in her vicinity. But Jack was alone, and so he could do whatever he wanted. Once he'd sized up the blonde, he forgot her.

He watched red-headed guy smile, and talk, and sip red wine, and hand off at least two shots of what might have been tequila to the sullen, pouty-lipped guy on his right. The blonde was leaning close, appearing to hang on his every word, yeah, but in the end, she left with Pouty. Interesting, that.

Watching Pouty down the free shots had made Jack think about getting some whisky, but he figured he'd better stick to beer. Since he had to get home later and all. But later seemed a long way away, as long as he had someone this sparkly and attractive to look at.

Finally the enthusiastic guy was swept toward the door with the crowd, saying goodbye, apparently, and Jack allowed himself the secret pleasure of sweeping him up and down one more time, now that he could get a really good full-spectrum look, since the guy was standing. Ugly plaid shirt, slim hips, the obligatory jeans, legs that went on forever, but oh, those lips, those eyes, and then Jack turned his attention to the hockey game on the screen at the end of the bar.

One wonderful thing about hockey. It had nothing to do with Pakistan. Nothing whatsoever.

"Hey, Pat, can I trade these for the largest glass of iced tea you've got?" Enthusiastic Guy was right there next to Jack, at the bar, setting down two beers that departing friends must have pressed on him. "... Okay, then yeah, Coke would be fine.... No, just Coke, please."

The guy was close enough to elbow, looking, at this much-pleasanter distance, sweaty and breathless and just as gorgeous as he had from across the room. He had acquired a jean jacket. And now he was alone.

Jack raised his second beer of the night and said, "You all looked like you had a lot to celebrate over there."

The guy gulped down half his Coke, and came up talking. "Yes, we certainly did." He grinned at Jack as if he'd known him all his life. He brought his Coke over to thunk against Jack's beer, which didn't work very well, as the Coke was in a tall plastic glass, but Jack took the gesture in its intended spirit. "We've pulled down all the grants we need for the next academic year, a paper of mine was accepted to a major high-profile journal, we think we might get to head to Egypt next season, and so in short -- life is good and things make sense."

"All righty then," Jack said, grinning back. The guy's smile was infectious. "Next up, world peace."

"And a pony," the guy agreed, and Jack laughed.

"I'm Daniel," the guy said extending his hand, and Jack couldn't but shake it.

"Jack," he said, and he almost said "Jack O'Neill," just his habit, but he stopped at the first name because something was pinging him, something under the surface that he usually didn't ever look for stateside, because he had what he was looking for at home, when he was home.

And that particular ping, he'd never felt in Chicago before, never, because he'd moved away from here long before he'd known what it was all about. Chicago wasn't ever about this, for Jack. But it was incontrovertible that the vibe he was getting from this guy was the same kind of body language, the same kind of signal, that served him overseas, after certain missions. Only then -- when he was far from home, and he needed something. When he was one of the guys who went months without family, who saw things and did things, together, that they couldn't take home to family. Guys for whom the hookups were anonymous and more than a little desperate, encounters where no one ever announced their last names, and the first names you did get were certainly fake.

The guy was smiling too much, and looking at his mouth, which you would never let yourself do if it was Kawalsky or Boyd. He'd held Jack's hand that little bit too long after they'd shaken, too. Most of all, he was looking too warmly and too intently into Jack's eyes. Ratchet up the intensity any more and it would be a blatant eyefuck. But maybe that wasn't out of place, here, in the neighborhood of the university, in a big city like Chicago. It was a whole new decade now, and America had gotten more liberal, more tolerant, when Jack wasn't looking, committed as he was to a life where the rules were very, very different than they would be here, for an academic in the Second City of the good ole U.S.A. And as the cues piled up, Jack suddenly understood that maybe the thing that would help him forget Pakistan, for real, deep down, to the bone, and would let him go home to Sara in something resembling one piece, was right here in front of him after all.

Jack let his smile curl one corner of his mouth, as he held that intent blue gaze, and then he drained his beer and said, "Pull up a stool, Daniel. You sure you're sticking with Coke?"

"Well, I do have to drive home. Eventually," Daniel said, still with that reckless eager look, and his tone was shading into something that sounded like ... flirting.

"But the night is young," Jack said. "And maybe you'll get lucky, and someone will give you a ride and then you won't have to drive."

"Maybe," Daniel said, and the light in his eyes dimmed, just for a minute, and his face got serious. He was still looking right at Jack. The connection was there; Jack wasn't imagining it.

"Maybe I'll get lucky myself and be the one to get to give you a ride," Jack said, daring, yet his gut told him, had been telling him ever since he caught sight of the guy, that it wasn't daring at all. It was the safest of safe bets.

Daniel's serious expression stayed, for a moment, and then it changed. His face flashed through a half dozen moods, each stunning Jack with its intensity and its, well, nakedness. Daniel showed him surprise, embarrassment, disbelief, lust, shame and finally determination. He turned away and set his Coke down on the bar.

"Pat. Can I have that dark beer you have on draft," he said, catching the bartender's eye almost immediately.

"Two," Jack echoed. He could do dark beer. And flirting. The guy was not only gorgeous, he was intriguing.

"So tell me about this paper," Jack said, when Daniel was contemplating the tall glass that Pat parked between his forearms. He'd let Jack pay cash for their drinks with a calculating, assessing glance that flicked from Pat to Jack and then back down to his glass.

Jack hitched his stool a little closer, so that his knee was brushing Daniel's.

Daniel looked up. And left his knee right where it was, touching Jack's. A small, anticipatory thrill began to gather in Jack's lower back. Soon it would creep up his spine.

Daniel said carefully, "You don't have to pretend to be interested in my paper. 'Cause trust me -- you don't look like someone who's very into archaeology."

"There's where you're wrong. I am interested," Jack returned, keeping his expression open.

"Okay," Daniel said, drawing out the second vowel. "The paper is about competing theories on the correct translation of two types of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. I take sides."

"Sounds pretty much over my head, but I always like a good controversy," Jack said. The guy was so attractive, yet so self-conscious. Almost too-conscious. Too self-aware. Jack had known guys like that whose mental tendencies made them wash out of parachute training. They literally thought too much.

Daniel smiled, and, taking him at his word, or perhaps looking forward to showing off, plunged in to an explanation. It was almost certainly the abridged and dumbed down version, but it still took the better part of fifteen minutes and most of Jack's beer for Daniel to give him the gist, as well as the sacrifice of three cocktail napkins in the service of Daniel's expository drawings.

The lecture came to an end, and Daniel wadded the last napkin and turned to his neglected beer. "And that's my position. And you've done a bangup job of pretending to be interested in something that I'm certain is not your field. Not even close. What do you do? Engineering? Something in IT?"

"Not even close," Jack echoed, and he found himself about to tell the truth. Something about the changing waves of feeling and enthusiasm on Daniel's face made him want to open up just as much, show just as much. Dangerous. Impossible. "I'm in the military," he said, amending "Air Force" to the more generic term at the last possible moment. Daniel's expression got even more surprised and curious than before, if that were possible. "I fly planes," Jack said.

"Well that explains the haircut," Daniel said, and licked his lips, and that made Jack laugh out loud. "And I suppose," Daniel went on, after Jack had calmed his laughter with another sip of beer, "that if you told me any more--"

Jack's voice, joining his, a fractured unison, "I'd have to kill you."

Making them both laugh. Jack became aware that Daniel's knee was frankly pressing his now, that Daniel was leaning in, and that his beer was gone.

Jack made his voice gentle. "I meant what I said about you getting lucky and getting a ride home."

"Yeah?"

Jack met his eyes squarely. The guy had brought down his poker face. He just looked calm now, giving nothing away. "Or you could take me somewhere. My truck'll be fine here; I parked in the lot with security, down the block. Not on the street."

"I'm on the street," Daniel offered, and then he hesitated, but his knee was warm against Jack's, and it even slid a little along the denim of Jack's thigh, slid a little closer.

"Your place is fine with me," Jack said, still drowning in all that blue, and with the tone in his voice and the words themselves, there was no possible way Daniel could mistake what that meant, what Jack wanted and was agreeing to.

"Yeah, okay," Daniel said, exhaling breathily as he said it, and he looked into his beer glass and seemed surprised to find it empty. He got up and ran a hand through his hair and turned for the door.

Jack put a five on the bar as he got up. Pat winked at him. Jack smiled back. It was disorienting, to be in a place where nobody knew him, where he could pick some guy up in plain sight, in a bar that wasn't even a gay bar, and the bartender wouldn't bat an eye, would obliquely congratulate him. Jesus. He really did ordinarily live in a different world than Chicago, America, 1993.

Daniel was waiting for him outside, and when Jack came through the door Daniel slid his hands into his pockets as he led the way down the block to a little nondescript Japanese car, parked, as he'd said, at the curb. Jack kept close, right behind his right shoulder, closer than he'd have walked with Kawalsky, or any of the guys from the team. The car was old enough that Daniel didn't have a remote to unlock the passenger door. Jack waited, his hand on the door latch. Daniel leaned to pull the lock up for him. As Jack got in, Daniel turned the key. The radio came on with the engine -- the university station Jack remembered. At this time of night it was always old jazz. Jack smiled.

They drove, and Jack watched Daniel's profile, and the sweep of his long hair, and the bands of white light that stretched across his face from the streetlights. They didn't talk. Jack figured at this point there wasn't all that much to say.

They headed into the neighborhoods that bordered the University. Once away from the commercial area of bars and restaurants, traffic abruptly lessened. The waiting, saturated city night seemed to expand around the little car.

Without warning, and without explanation, Daniel turned into the parking lot of an all-night drugstore. Without looking at Jack, he got out and strode up the sidewalk. Jack settled back in his seat and put his hands in his pockets. Out of habit, he scanned the brightly lit vicinity around the car, even turning to look out the back window once or twice, even though what he felt like doing was putting his head back and closing his eyes, letting the anticipation build, while he waited for Daniel. He was sure he knew what Daniel was buying. He hoped he did, anyway.

Very soon Daniel got back in the car. Jack could see the tail of a white plastic sack hanging from the slash pocket of his jean jacket, but he didn't offer any explanation. But after he turned the key he took his hand from the ignition and turned to Jack, and then he was leaning, and Jack found himself leaning, too, eager and surprised.

Their mouths met, skidded a little, caught. Jack reached for Daniel's shoulder. Daniel had hold of his leather jacket's lapel.

The kiss was warm and solid. It seemed more greeting than exploration. It made Jack smile and break into it to nuzzle Daniel's lips a little. When it finally came to an end, it felt so good that Jack didn't want it to stop, so he started another kiss. With a grunt of pleased surprise, Daniel not only welcomed this, but escalated it. He opened his mouth, making everything wetter and deeper. Jack slid his hand around and up and tangled it in Daniel's long hair. The kiss began to make him hard.

Finally Daniel leaned back, still looking curious, still so intent, his mouth wet. He said: "I just wanted to, you know. Before we got to my place."

"In case there was any doubt," Jack agreed gravely.

"Of my intentions," Daniel finished, and flashed him a smile, quick and bright as lightning, and then Daniel licked his lips and raised his eyebrows and took hold of the wheel again. He put the car in gear, backed out, headed for the street. "It sounds so formal and courtly like that."

"Oh, I'm not very formal," Jack said.

"And I'm certainly not courtly."

"A successful grad student who hasn't ever held court? Come on. I bet you could be devastating in your demolition of someone else's stupid theory." Jack kept his voice light, but he couldn't take his eyes off Daniel's mouth. Without really thinking about it he let his hand creep over until he could brush the side of Daniel's thigh. Daniel didn't flinch, but Jack was watching him so intently that he saw it when his eyes creased, just a little, at the contact. Jack slid careful fingers up and over to rest his palm on the big muscle on top, and curl his fingertips toward Daniel's inseam.

Daniel made a little noise. "Maybe you shouldn't do that," he said.

"Ah," Jack said, and took his hand back.

"It's just that it's very distracting. In the good way." Daniel took a deep breath, and Jack watched the street lights flash in his glasses, until very shortly he pulled up in front of a nondescript brownstone in a rather rundown neighborhood.

Jack glanced around as he followed Daniel up the walk to the door. The neighborhood looked familiar -- it had to be within a stone's throw of the University. But it had a been a long time.

Daniel's place was on the second floor, at the back. He glanced at Jack, his face unreadable, as he fumbled for his keys, and then ushered Jack ahead of him. Rock music was drifting in from somewhere, through a wall or a floor, and there was a distinct odor of burned coffee and old wax, and then Jack wasn't investigating the place any further because Daniel was pushing him back against the closed door, getting them chest to chest, and fitting their mouths together again. His glasses were gone and he had one hand pressed against Jack's jaw. He was breathing hard. His lips were cool.

Jack opened to him immediately, tilted his head and let it thump gently against the door, inviting Daniel to get aggressive with the kissing, which Daniel did. Jack's heart started to pound. He slid his hands under the back of Daniel's jacket and worried the tails of his shirt from the waistband of his jeans. The skin of his back was smooth and warm; not furred at all. While the amazing intense kissing went on, Jack explored the contours of Daniel's ribs and spine with one hand, and let the other roam down to see just how tight the top of those jeans really was. When his fingertips wedged under the waistband, reaching for the swelling curve of Daniel's ass, Daniel groaned without breaking the seal of their mouths and shoved a knee between Jack's legs, and all of a sudden there were teeth in his kiss, little hasty nips and bites at Jack's lips. Then Daniel pressed his erection against Jack's own, and sucked. Hard. Jack's hands grabbed, hard, a reflex, his nails scratching a little, and he groaned too.

Daniel pulled back then, his glasses dangling from one hand, and he fumbled the drugstore sack out of his pocket as he turned and then he juggled glasses and sack so that he could jerk himself out of his jean jacket. He dropped it on the floor. Jack almost tripped over it, and then, forewarned, he managed to not trip over Daniel's shoes, which made a trail along with the jacket as he toed out of them, heading single-mindedly across the front room and down his hallway. Jack followed.

Jack had a confused impression of dim light, dark colors, something fabric-y hanging on a couple of the walls, maybe a brick mantelpiece, and books -- books stacked everywhere, on the floor, on the low table, but then they were in the hall and the hall presumably led to the bedroom and this was very, very good.

"You're actually a top, aren't you," Daniel said, over his shoulder. His shirt was unbuttoned now; Jack could see the tails swinging. It made his dick jump in his jeans. He wasn't about to go strewing his own clothes in a strange place, but he slid out of his jacket and crushed it under his arm and started undoing buttons. Nice to know the guy felt as eager as Jack did. Nice that he didn't feel any need to hide that.

"Aren't you theorizing ahead of your data, professor?"

That got him a smoldering glance, and a murmured "Oh my god," and then they were in the bedroom and Daniel snapped on a lamp and turned to him and slid his hands inside Jack's now-unbuttoned shirt, clucking approvingly, and kissed him again. Repeatedly. In the middle of the kissing, Daniel went to work on Jack's fly.

"Pardon my totally inappropriate stereotyping. I don't know what got into me. Why should I assume that a guy who looks like you, Errol Flynn-handsome, and about whom I know three facts, that you know Chicago and that you're 'military' and that your skills include 'pilot', now why should I assume that a guy like you only ever tops, mmm?"

Daniel delivered this speech despite the fact that he was kissing Jack's mouth, and ear, and jaw, and neck, after every second or third word, and by the time he had said it all, they were both naked and arranging themselves horizontally on the unmade bed.

"Oh, let's be clear," Jack said. "I can certainly top if you want me to," and he rolled as he said it, bracing himself over Daniel and biting gently at his throat, sliding his knee between Daniel's legs in his turn, in a spirit of fairness.

"Well, --oh. Oh, god," and Jack had to be just a little bit smug that he could distract the guy like that, a lives-in-his-head scientist type, because Jack had gotten his weight onto one elbow so that he could look down the long cool drink of milk that was Daniel's torso and slide an appreciative grip over his dick.

Which was long and narrow and cut, a little curved, and yeah, hardly any hair on the guy. Not on his chest, not around the base of his dick. Daniel, who had seemingly lost interest in finishing his sentence, arched and moaned and pressed up into Jack's hand, fucking the fist Jack curled around his erection for a few short pointed seconds, and as he arched he brought up his arms, and no, not much hair under there either. The guy could model. If he wanted. Without his glasses, his face looked totally different; more masculine somehow; the long hair a more shocking contrast against his square jaw and high cheekbones. With his eyes closed, he seemed distant. When he turned that laser-blue stare on you, you lost sight of pretty much every other feature.

Jack rolled close again, skin seeking skin, and found Daniel's mouth again. Daniel was pretty much moaning continuously now, and the way he did it, not caring how it sounded, not embarrassed, let something loose in Jack. He rarely made noise in bed, but he did now.

Daniel was getting hard and very wet in his hand. It made him want to taste, though he knew that was stupid.

He pulled back from the deep, deep kissing.

"I don't have to top," Jack said. His voice was hoarse. "We don't have to do that at all. This is really good, just this."

Daniel said something inarticulate that might have been Jack's name, and grabbed him by the shoulders, and Jack flinched, because it was second nature for him to not let people manhandle him, but he braced against his instinct and made himself relax. Through the haze of lust, Daniel glanced at him, and Jack knew he'd caught the redirect. Daniel didn't stop, though. He rolled them, and Jack let him, went with it, and then it was Daniel braced over him, opening his knees to straddle one of Jack's legs, bringing their dicks together, and Daniel was leaning on Jack's shoulders and kissing him until Jack was lost, drowned, oblivious to anything but the taste of this man, the feel of his skin, his weight pressing Jack into the mattress. Jack wrapped his arms around Daniel's ribs and held on.

Daniel pulled back a little, the kiss ebbing, and Jack realized he was panting, that he had a handful of firm ass in each hand and was grinding up while he pressed Daniel down against him.

"God," Daniel said, again, and put his face in Jack's neck, his breath coming warm and fast against Jack's ear. Jack smoothed his hands up Daniel's back. Daniel traced his sideburn, the curl of his ear. Jack shivered.

"You can do me," Jack whispered, turning his head, trying to press his cheek against Daniel's. "I think you kinda want to. I think you like it up there."

"God, what was your first clue," Daniel gasped, and kissed him again, hastily, sloppily. He rolled aside, and reached to the floor, and Jack felt him fumbling with the sack, heard the rustle of plastic and the crackle of packaging.

He heaved up to his elbows so he could look, at what Daniel was doing and at the guy's ass, which, in point of fact, looked as gorgeous as it had felt. Daniel had, as Jack had silently predicted, come out of the drugstore with both lube and condoms. What that said -- that Daniel didn't keep stuff like that around the place, that he'd stopped for a new supply after picking up Jack, Jack could only speculate. He remembered the blonde woman, but he suppressed that right away. Thinking about women was not a train of thought he could afford to pursue just now.

He slid his knee under Daniel's and squeezed Daniel's arm, watching as he uncapped the lube and detached a packet from the strips in the box. Daniel pinned him with a potent look, and squeezed some of the gel into his own hand and rolled in and scooted back at the same time, giving himself room enough to take hold of Jack, and room to watch.

Jack groaned and lay back, grabbing the single, still-wrapped condom out of Daniel's hand as he did.

Daniel's touch was careful and sure, stroking firmly, lingering around the head, twisting a little, so gentle, and then after a while he changed it up, moving down to explore Jack's balls, rolling them, and finally, urging him to open his legs.

Jack turned his head away, to the side, and groped for Daniel's arm, but he followed the quiet suggestion of Daniel's hand on his thigh, and spread for him.

Daniel played with his balls for another moment, then let his fingers drift lower.

"You don't do this all that much," Daniel guessed out loud, stroking with two fingers over that sweet spot under Jack's balls.

Jack moaned, neither agreement nor disagreement, and opened his knees some more. Daniel sucked in a breath, and his finger slid in, cool and slick and so good. Jack turned his head back, pressed his forehead against Daniel's shoulder and pushed against his finger.

Daniel opened him steadily, not rushing but not lingering either, as if what he really wanted was the fucking. And for that he didn't want anything fancy. He turned Jack, when he'd brought Jack to an objective-free, stretched-open peak of ecstasy with his fingers, so that he could fuck Jack from behind, both of them lying on their sides. If Daniel had so much as touched his dick at the end of the prep, there, when he'd pushed three fingers inside and hinted at a fourth, having been generous with the lube, everything sliding and open and painted in a red swollen haze of absolute pure lust, Jack would have come, right then. He was sure Daniel could see how wet he was. But Daniel had resisted; hadn't touched his dick at all, through all that. When Jack could surface enough to snatch a glance at Daniel's face, he could see Daniel riveted, looking at what he was doing to Jack, and looking at Jack's dick like it was good enough to eat.

So, finally, Daniel pulled out, slowly, carefully, both of them gasping, and then he pushed on Jack's shoulder, inviting Jack to turn away and let Daniel take him from behind. Just invited. Didn't insist. Jack shifted to lie on his side, and then all he could do was wait. He thought, disconnected, that he should help, should make the ritual of the condom something sexy, something they did together, but he couldn't move. He lay there, panting and open. Waiting.

When Daniel took hold of his shoulder to brace, and then pushed into him, guiding himself with his free hand, Jack groaned and melted, lifting his hips, pushing back, all lust and no thought, and so wanton, so wanting it.

"God," Daniel said, propped now over Jack, propped against him, easing in and in, slowly, beautifully. Jack scrabbled for the edge of the mattress, found it, braced, and pushed back. His pulse was throbbing in his lips, in his ass, in his dick.

It went on like that for maybe three strokes, in and slowly out, and then Daniel started to talk. His voice was low and rough and choked with passion.

"God, you are so fucking gorgeous. So handsome. No idea that you'd let me do this, no fucking idea. God, you feel good. So good. I want it to be good for you, Jack, tell me what you want, whatever you want. God. God."

" 'S good," Jack gasped. "What you're doing. Slow like that. So good."

"God, Jack, Jack," Daniel said, and he was braced, taut, still holding Jack's shoulder, and Jack knew he was watching; watching his dick disappear into Jack's body, over and over, slow and deep. Jack let the strokes push him into the pillow, let them roll him, and he scrunched his eyes closed and pressed his face into the pillow and dissolved into Daniel fucking him.

After a mindless while, Jack was aware that Daniel was gasping, and repeating his name, and his strokes were getting harder. Jack groped for his own dick, vaguely feeling that he wanted to come when Daniel came, wanted it all to happen together, and Daniel let go of his shoulder to clutch his hipbones with both hands and drive himself as deep as he could, shaking and crying out.

Jack groaned, pressing back, and came all over his own fingers.

It went on a for a long time, the feedback loop between his ass and his dick making everything stronger, longer, more intense. God, it was good like this, when it was good. Jack had had plenty of lousy experiences as a bottom, through the years, but when it was good, when the other guy took his time, let it be gentle enough so that everything got loose and interested -- God. Nothing better.

His breathing had slowed enough to let him lick his dry lips and swallow. He'd probably made a lot of noise. He knew Daniel had. It was like an echo, lingering in his ears. An aftershock of sound. He'd been too distracted to actually hear it in real time, but he had a confused memory of their voices blending, groaning together, there at the end.

Daniel's thighs were still pressed up against his own, and he could feel Daniel's hand, flat between them, carefully pressed against the opening of the condom, probably, being careful even while wanting to linger, wanting not to pull out so soon.

It made Jack smile. He knew that feeling; that reluctance to separate. He groped for Daniel's other hand, which was somewhere in the vicinity of Jack's bottom shoulder, and when he covered it with his own, Daniel grunted. Again, surprise. Jack squeezed his hand.

Daniel exhaled, and Jack could hear him thinking.

"It's okay," Jack said. "Better take care of that."

"Yeah. It's just..."

"Hard to ..."

"Yeah." Daniel carefully withdrew, and Jack closed his eyes and just lay there, waiting again, and he heard plumbing noises through the wall and pretty soon Daniel came back with a warm cloth and wiped him up without a word and went away to get rid of the cloth and came back and pressed against Jack's back again. Which was a surprise. A very, very pleasant warm surprise.

Jack wrapped his arms around the arms that were wrapped around his middle, and said, "Can I catch a few Z's here? Or do we need to go?"

"No, you can sleep a little, if you want." Daniel sounded surprised. Jack tried to put it together; if his surprise was at Jack wanting to stay or Jack assuming he might have to go soon. But very soon Jack was out like a light, clutching Daniel's arms, burrowing into the bed as if Daniel's quilts, Daniel's warmth, were someplace he could actually hide out.

Jack jolted awake, sparked by some internal clock, or the strange surroundings, after the medium-sized nap that resulted in maximum alertness, almost as good as a night's sleep. He could tell immediately that roughly and hour and a half had passed. Daniel was awake. Still pressed against his back, awake.

"God, sorry," Jack said. "You didn't sleep at all, did you."

Daniel's voice was soft and cautious. He still had his arms wrapped around Jack's middle. "You've been somewhere ... bad. Haven't you?"

Jack disentangled himself and sat up. Quickly. "Sorry. Sorry about that. What did I say?"

Daniel put a hand on his shoulder, and Jack let Daniel turn him. Daniel wanted his eyes, so Jack met his now-cautious gaze. "You didn't say anything. Well, you said something, but Urdu is not one of my languages. It was more what you did.... Shivers. The tension in your body when you dreamed."

Their gazes locked. A wave of goosebumps poured down Jack's back. He put his hand where his tags would have been, if he'd been wearing them, and changed the gesture to a clutching at his own elbows. Jack opened his mouth to apologize again, but Daniel squeezed his shoulder. "I'm sorry. Sorry you had to do anything like that. Whatever it was."

Jack swallowed. Then he rubbed his face with both hands. He was way too awake now. He put his hand on Daniel's shoulder, and admired, fleetingly, the smooth chest, the small tight nipples. He leaned over, across their folded knees, and kissed him and Daniel let him, but he wasn't into it. Not like before. Because this was the end of the night and not the beginning, and they both knew it.

"I better go," Jack said.

"Yeah," Daniel said, and he waited while Jack got up and found his way out into the hall and splashed water on his face. When Jack came out of the bathroom, and went back to the bedroom to find his clothes, Daniel wasn't in there. Jack got dressed alone.

Daniel took him to the lot where Jack had left his truck. It wasn't anywhere close to dawn yet; the sky was still black, still pierced by the few stars strong enough to be seen through city lights.

After he stopped the car, Daniel reached for the ignition, but stopped himself and left the car running. He put his hands on the wheel and turned to Jack. He said, carefully, "I can't call you, can I." He didn't make it a question.

"No," Jack answered, and left off the _"I'm sorry"_ that he found was shaping itself inside his mouth.

Daniel nodded, and he looked Jack up and down, one more time, and a hint of a smile touched his lips, and then he looked out the windshield, and Jack got out. Daniel put the car in gear, and Jack watched him drive away.

When Jack got back to his mom's, he parked the truck in the familiar, neatly organized garage with a sense of deja vu, as if he were seventeen again and just getting home from a Saturday night date, still in high school, before he'd been overseas even once, or shot anyone, or watched anyone die, or fucked a guy for the first time, or gotten married. Felt as if it were the first time he'd ever dragged in, in the middle of night, soaked in sex and secrets, carrying someone else's touch on his skin instead of only his own.

He went across the yard and into the house, using his key, missing all the creaking floorboards out of pure habit, no thought required. He was a little concerned about the cigarette smoke and musk that seemed to float like a cloud around him, but if he took a shower now, he'd wake up everyone and that would be rude.

So he stripped to his boxers, and snuggled into his old bed in his old room, which was a sewing room now but which still had a bunch of his stuff on the walls and on the shelves, and he watched the fading fluorescent stars he'd glued to the ceiling when he was no older than Charlie.

When he slept again, it was peacefully and long, and as far as he could tell he did not dream, or say stuff he shouldn't out loud in Urdu, and when he woke, the white morning light was pouring through the curtains, and the house was full of the smell of his mother's coffee and his dad's Denver omelettes.

He lay on his back and stretched, and felt the souvenirs of the night, of Daniel, in his body, and thought, maybe, he could go home. Should go home, now. And on Saturday maybe he could make Denver omelettes for Sara. Sara always loved his dad's omelettes.


	2. "In Case You Succeed"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missing scenes from "Stargate", the movie.

When the two officers left the house, Jack let Sara see them out. He waited until he heard the front door close, and then he got up from Charlie's bed and went and took a shower.

He'd had one that morning, out of habit, but it seemed like the thing to do.

For the first time in months, when he washed his hair, he actually felt it. Noticed it. It felt wrong. It was too long.

When he shut off the water and got out, he wrapped himself in a towel and shaved. He didn't like the look of the hollow-eyed guy meeting his glances in the mirror, but he didn't like the view from Charlie's bed, or the slippery poison feel of the little handgun against his fingers, either.

He dressed in whatever was at the front of the closet, and found the keys to the truck. He would go immediately and get a respectable haircut. He hesitated, in the front hall, listening for Sara, but the house was quiet. He'd tell her what was up when he got back from the barbershop. Because orders were orders. It was the one thing that was still true.

****

Jack hadn't expected this, when he stepped into the shabby neighborhood bar on his way home to his temp quarters at Peterson.

He hadn't expected to see that long hair flopping, those enthusiastic hands, that sparkling smile. Not here. Yeah, it was Jackson, somehow escaped from the mountain. And Jackson was happy. He was raising a drink and celebrating. In a bar. Again. It was like a flashback. It gave Jack a surprised shiver, to step into this dive of a place in the Springs and catch sight of the guy again, looking just the same way, just as he had before, one memorable night, back in Chicago. Back when Jack still had a life.

Jack should have turned around and walked out, right then, right when he saw that it was Kawalsky that Jackson was raising his bottle to toast with. The bottles clashed, and both men drank. It was a dinky, nearly-seedy haven, a known hangout for NORAD guys and so now also for the personnel from the secret program a few floors down in their mountain. The place was nothing special, just a storefront in a strip center, with tattered banners outside advertising Wednesday specials on Coronas, and a half-burned-out neon sign that flashed 'Budweiser.' It was on Jack's direct route to what passed for home these days, over at Peterson. When they'd reactivated him for Project Giza, he'd been given quarters at the Colorado Springs air base for the duration, even though no one could say how long that duration would actually be. Open-ended orders were unusual, but not that unusual. It wasn't the first mission Jack had been on that lacked a predictable outcome.

It had only been two weeks since he and Jackson had, coincidentally, spent their very first day on this job together, and now, Jackson certainly had something to celebrate, and he had certainly given Jack, and the brass, a lot to think about. The geeks and the scientists were, pardon the expression, over the moon now, and so Jack had headed home after a day of excited conferences and phone calls. On his way, he'd caught sight of the Corona banner, and so he'd pulled up to the bar on a whim, not thinking too hard about what he was doing, still floating a little on the science-fiction-becomes-fact nature of what happened at the mountain, still a little bemused. After a day like that, he hadn't been ready to disappear into his soulless room on base and spend another night with the TV. It wasn't that he'd wanted company this evening, exactly. Because if it were that simple, he could get company at the mountain -- the nonintrusive cheerful familiar company of the other officers. He even knew a couple of them from before, which was kinda good and kinda bad. In fact he'd already brushed off Kawalsky and Rich this week, when they would have dragged him out with them to play pool and get drunk, no problem, nothing heavy. But Jack hadn't wanted that, not earlier in the week and not now. He didn't want to talk, or socialize, or think, really, but... They were all on the verge of something huge; big changes were on the way, were actually imminent.

Tomorrow they'd brief the brass on Jackson's midnight breakthrough, and unless something went very wrong, it was clear even to Jack, who was no expert, that they were very very close, literally one step away, from actually cracking the key to the alien ring. The stargate. Actually making it work, making it do whatever it did. Theories that were way over Jack's head competed on that point, but all were in agreement that Jackson had made a breakthrough, even though the very existence of thing was still a secret from their officially designated golden boy. They were there. This was it.

So, Jack had stopped by the little bar. He'd thought, vaguely, as he climbed out of the truck and went up the sidewalk, that he'd toss back a beer, maybe indulge in a shot or two, maybe watch the last of the playoffs with the other barfly's. But instead, he'd run across Jackson and Kawalsky.

It was strange and out of character to see them together, which made Jack hesitate after the initial surprise made him stop. He glanced around the room, looking for anyone else from the mountain. Maybe they had come with a group. The bar was smoky and less than half full -- after dinner on a weeknight, with most fans watching the big game at home. Nope; it was just the two of them. He noticed a mall sack with big handles and garish stripes parked next to Jackson's barstool.

"Hey, O'Neill!" Kawalsky had seen him and was waving him over, a grin splitting his face. Jack rolled his eyes. Kawalsky had that same spy sense Jack had -- if someone was watching him, he could feel it. It had come in handy back in the day, but now? Jack wished Kawalsky had lost his touch.

He sighed and felt for his cigarettes and walked on over. Kawalsky ordered him a beer. Daniel smiled at him and pushed an ashtray nearer. Jack bowed to the inevitable and lit a smoke and came right up to them and put his elbows on the bar, taking a position that put Daniel between him and Kawalsky. He didn't investigate that urge too closely either; the urge to stay next to Daniel.

Daniel still wore jeans -- maybe even the same jeans he'd had on _that night,_ so long ago, but he didn't have a plaid buttondown today. Instead he wore a ratty t-shirt and an even rattier hoodie. He looked like a homeless person. Which he practically was, in fact. Except he had that radiant smile, which was now turned on Jack. No homeless person of Jack's acquaintance had ever looked that happy.

"Hey, give me one of those," Kawalsky said, paying for the beer and pushing it toward Jack, letting it stand behind the ashtray. Jack handed over the Marlboro he'd just lit and pulled out a new one for himself. Daniel turned away and sneezed into a handkerchief that he yanked from his front pocket.

"How'd you draw the babysitting duty for Wonder Boy?" Jack said to Kawalsky, nudging Daniel with an elbow as Daniel stuffed away his handkerchief. It was a big old-fashioned square, plain white cotton, like Jack's granddad used to carry.

"Got the short straw, I guess," Kawalsky returned, still grinning, saluting Daniel with his bottle and drinking.

"Charlie insisted I had to look nice for the meeting with the generals tomorrow," Daniel said. "He took me to the mall and made me buy a new suit jacket." Daniel kicked at the sack at his feet.

"And get this, Jack. He bought -- wait for it -- tweed!" Kawalsky seemed to think this was hilarious. "I couldn't talk him out of it! And believe me, I tried." His laugh was honking, making several people farther down the bar glance their way. Jack shook his head. Daniel rolled his eyes.

"Does it have leather patches on the elbows?" Jack asked Daniel, a little reluctant to meet the guy's eyes, but going with the flow all the same. They weren't at work. Jack wasn't in uniform. It felt, without that buffer of The Colonel, that he was too exposed.

Daniel looked affronted. "No, as a matter of fact, it does not," he returned, levelly.

"You know that's a rule," Jack said to Kawalsky, deadpan. "Tweed is like the uniform of the professor. I think they issue tweed jackets with the first master's degree in the arts-and-sciences colleges all across America. But he'll lose points without the elbow patches."

Kawalsky, laughing again, tipped his beer up and drained it. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and brushed by Daniel, clapping him on the shoulder. He disappeared around the corner of the bar, presumably heading for the men's room.

Jack took a drag from his cigarette and stubbed it out. He pulled the lighter and the pack from his jacket pocket and stacked them carefully, squaring them up, next to the ash tray.

When he looked up, Daniel was staring at him, and yet looking a little distant. Jack was pretty sure he knew what Daniel was thinking about. Daniel tilted his head and his eyes went heavy-lidded. Jack inhaled and put a hand on his beer. Surely Daniel wouldn't do anything; not here. This wasn't Chicago.

"I wondered if I'd ever get to talk to you alone," Daniel said quietly.

Jack focused his glance away from those eyes and onto his beer. The label was getting wet as the condensation seeped along the glass. "Not easy to arrange, given the working conditions." And maybe it was that way on purpose, from Jack's side of things.

"No. And not easy to arrange, since I had no idea if you'd remember me. Or if you did, whether you might prefer to pretend you didn't."

Jack looked up. Daniel had folded his arms. He wasn't gonna lean in, then, or get any closer. That was a tiny tendril of relief.

Jack picked up his beer. "You and me? We didn't have the kind of meeting where you exchange numbers. Addresses. Emails. Agree to send Christmas cards." Jack realized he sounded more bitter than he felt, and took a pull from his bottle to shut himself up.

"I knew that at the time. I thought I made that clear." Daniel's look was stern, but not accusing so much as challenging.

"You did," Jack agreed, and then he paused. There was more he wanted to say. Something more. Why? Why did he want to talk to this guy? "I was surprised to see you again," Jack continued, grudgingly. "Very surprised."

For some reason, he didn't want to shut this down, to stop talking. He didn't want Daniel to think it was a taboo subject now, but on the other hand, he really had no business standing here letting Daniel bring up their previous encounter. It was over and done with, and it had nothing to do with today. It belonged to another part of Jack's life, a part he always pushed aside when he was in the States and not on a mission. But the way he used to do things, everything he used to know, had blown apart. He'd lost his knack, it seemed, for knowing when to talk, when to run. He'd lost his knack for a lot of things.

Daniel said, "Yeah; what were the odds, really?"

Jack nodded. Daniel thoughtfully drank some beer. Jack shouldn't be having this conversation. He didn't do this -- hook up with guys stateside. It was a rule. It was important. At least it used to be. But it was impossible to put his beer down and walk away just now; impossible to throw a demand for Daniel to tell Kawalsky goodnight for him over his shoulder, and just leave. He'd made the choice to let Kawalsky wave him over, and here he was. He felt stuck. He watched, riveted, as Daniel closed his eyes, let his lips pout around the neck of the bottle. Watched the muscles in his throat as he swallowed, tilting his head back. It made that long hair swing, and Jack remembered how it had felt to thread his fingers through it -- remembered in a flash of scent and taste and touch. Lingering aroma of yesterday's coffee, and warm sheets, and the kindly soft dark of Daniel's cluttered bedroom. That night was a good memory. It had been something out of time in Jack's life. This guy didn't belong, then or now. He had nothing to do with either the military, or the raw howling place that had been Jack's family. Looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, that night, which came after Pakistan and before... Well. That night, as it turned out, had been like a fragile truce. Like the eye of a hurricane.

Daniel's long, callused hands on his skin. Daniel's mouth on his. Daniel, inside him. Taking him apart. Taking him down, to that mindless, volitionless place where there were only feelings and sensations. Nothing else.

Without really meaning to, Jack edged closer to Daniel and lit another cigarette. He blew the smoke over the bar, away from the man at his elbow. Daniel went very still.

Jack glanced around. No sign of Kawalsky. Daniel glanced around too.

"Look," Daniel said. "I won't pretend I wasn't glad to see you, despite the circumstances. I'm well aware of the fact that you can't be interested now, or risk getting interested, ever." He rested his elbows on the bar, cupping his bottle, picking at the label. Jack had to lean farther toward him to hear. "You're very memorable, Jack. But don't worry. I understood back in Chicago that for whatever reason, you didn't want me to know who you were, and I know that's still true, to a great extent, and I understand why."

"Good," Jack returned. He could smell Daniel's shampoo; something subtle and green-scented. "Then I won't have to waste any time explaining it."

Daniel looked up and smiled, that flash that came and went as he showed his teeth, bright but somehow not threatening. More tentative, like he almost didn't dare let anyone see it at all. Then Daniel sighed, as if trying to release some tension, and he drained his beer and put it down a little emphatically. He leaned an elbow on the bar and turned halfway toward Jack. "Let's get out of here. Give Charlie some excuse. You can take me home."

"Back to your hotel," Jack clarified, and something started to simmer at the base of his spine. God, it had been a long time since he'd felt anything of the kind. What was it about this guy? His gaze was intense, so blue and so alive. He had amazing eyes.

"Yes. And don't just drop me off, either." Daniel held Jack's gaze, and Jack stared, long and hard. It was so tempting. He remembered how he'd found Daniel, by sheer luck, and how that one night had made him forget. Forget everything. That one night.

Daniel, with a ghost of a smile, finished, "We do have a lot to celebrate. After all."

Jack said, unsmiling, "Yeah. We do."

****

Daniel's hotel room was nothing like the cozy apartment Jack had once gotten a glimpse of. It was a sterile place, barely lived in. A couple of suitcases in a corner, but nothing on the tables or nightstands but the lamps that came with the room. The two double beds were perfectly made, just as the cleaning people had left them. Daniel probably hadn't been back here for days. A strip of light seeped between the heavy curtains. The air was a little stale.

"God," Daniel said, looking around, after he turned on one of the lamps. "I've just been crashing at the base. I hardly remember this place."

"Not getting your money's worth of perks, huh. You'll have a pile of money in your per diem account before you know it."

"They have to call out a driver to get me back here, and there's so much to do at the mountain, so much research. And, the good computers are at the base, you know?" Daniel had folded his arms and was looking around the room like he was the guest, like it belonged to someone else. He'd left the mall sack standing by the door. Then he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "God," he repeated.

"Crashing?" Jack observed.

"I don't think I've slept for 36 hours. First I was too frustrated, and then, after I figured out the symbols, too wired."

"And so, we're back to why I'm here," Jack said, smiling a little, and walking over and reaching out, because there was no reason to wait, now that they were in Daniel's room. He remembered Daniel pinning him to a door, remembered how it felt when Daniel pushed his tongue into Jack's mouth.

Daniel turned to him and smiled, too, a slight raising of one corner of his lips, no more. His glasses were dangling from his hand. Just like before.

Jack, out of habit, out of a long-dormant, half-dead instinct, had intended to reach for his crotch. Old habits of hasty, direct approaches, where the ultimate objective was clear and immediate for both him and his anonymous partner of the moment. But that smile made him change his target. He watched Daniel's mouth, and when his fingers touched denim, let his hand slide along Daniel's hipbone, around the sideseam of his jeans to press his back pocket and bring him close. Daniel let him, but leaned back a little with his upper body so that he could watch Jack's face.

Jack frowned a little, and Daniel's gaze dropped to his mouth, and then Daniel leaned toward him.

Jack closed his eyes. Warmth, as they pressed their bodies together. Solid warmth, and the scrape of the fronts of their jeans as Daniel shifted his weight, not passively waiting for Jack, but not doing the blatant shimmy against his crotch, either. They pressed together, moving their hips just a little, wanting to feel, making contact from thighs all the way up to chest, and then Jack felt the tilting soft press of Daniel's lips. Daniel's arm curled around his shoulders and Daniel opened his mouth, inviting.

Jack stopped thinking entirely after that.

He let Daniel kiss him, just stood there and took it, holding him close, and they fumbled at buttons and zippers and about the only thing Jack contributed to the proceedings was to pull down the blankets and bedspread so they could sprawl on the sheets when they were naked, and he did also spare a glance to locate Daniel's glasses, safely on the nightstand between the beds.

After that, there was nothing beyond the overwhelming heat of skin and twining limbs. Wet mouths, and the blooming pleasure and focused warmth that meant a hardon, meant a repeat of the intensity Jack had experienced before, once, that night in Chicago.

Amazing, to feel something. Amazing, to want something, anything. To desire.

Daniel touched him, and he touched back. For a long time.

"How are we doing this," Daniel was whispering, through a blur of kisses. But Jack didn't have an answer, because he hadn't been planning a single thing. He opened his eyes. Daniel was above him, his weight a pleasant blanket, and leaning on his elbows, and their dicks were slotted together, gentle wet friction that felt so damn good. Looking made the sensations separate and become distinct again -- the sharp damp heat at their groins, the prickling slide of Daniel's calf against his, the fading, gentle nips at his neck, along his jaw. His mouth was damp and felt pleasantly bruised and just a little swollen. Jack found he was breathing hard, and that his hands were splayed, one at the guy's ribs, one cupping the side of his ass.

Jack couldn't speak. He shook his head, trying to indicate that anything was fine, that he had no preferences, that Daniel could choose, could do whatever. And Daniel frowned. Daniel leaned down and kissed him, and put his arms around Jack and pulled him close before turning them to their sides. He opened Jack's thighs with his knee, everything as tight and intertwined as they could get it.

Jack kissed him intently, deeply. He was lost already, and lost was where he wanted to be.

"Hey," Daniel said, after a long, long kiss, a kiss that left an afterburn of tongue all over the inside of Jack's mouth, left him breathless. "Are you okay?"

"No," Jack said, because he wasn't, and he immediately said, "Yes," because he was, kind of, and the one thing he couldn't do, wouldn't do, was talk about that. Not now. Not ever. So he rolled them, getting above Daniel, scrubbing their groins together, kissing Daniel hard and deeply in his turn, like Daniel had just kissed him.

Daniel closed his eyes and moaned into his mouth, hands scrabbling for purchase on Jack's back.

Jack lifted his head just enough to speak, his own eyes closed, and said, "Where's the stuff?"

Daniel's started, a little. "Oh, shit, I don't have anything. I didn't plan for this. Not this time."

Jack let go and rolled away and onto the floor between the beds in one quick move. He always had a rubber in his wallet; ages-long habit. He found his crumpled jeans and opened the wallet and threw the little packet on the bed, and got up without a pause and went into the bathroom. Between the little standard bottles of lotion and cream rinse, they could make do. When he came back, Daniel was leaning on an elbow, looking at him, eyebrows up, the rubber between his fingers. Jack didn't give him any more time to think or ask questions. He knew why they were both here; what they both wanted. At least, he knew part of it. And that was more than enough for tonight.

He slid a hand around Daniel's neck, fingers in his hair again, and kissed him, slow and deep and careful. He wasn't in a hurry and he wasn't worried or upset. He just wanted to feel and not think. He wanted to fuck and not talk.

Daniel melted under his hands, letting Jack take charge the way Jack had been letting him, until just a few minutes ago. The way Jack had let him the first time they'd been together.

Daniel kissed him back and arched into his touch as Jack feathered fingertips along that long erection he remembered so well. His fingers seemed to remember too. He closed his eyes again and kissed and touched, caressing Daniel's dick, cupping and fondling his tight balls, flattening his palm and running it up Daniel's hip and over his lower belly, beneath his erection. Daniel groaned.

"You had me pegged for a top, back then," Jack whispered, right against his ear, kissing his thick hair, tongueing his sideburn through it. "Let me fuck you, this time?"

"God, yes," Daniel said, and he grabbed Jack's head and kissed him, once, hard, and without further ado he flipped himself over, presenting his ass, and reaching back, he slid his hand under Jack's arm by touch alone, and gripped Jack's hip, squeezing and encouraging.

Jack smiled. "Look, I can try a little harder to talk you into it if you need me to."

And Daniel laughed, and his hand tightened on Jack's hip. Jack cracked open the little bottles he'd found and squeezed out all the makeshift lube, coating his fingers and painting Daniel. Daniel was cooperative, saying little encouraging things into his pillow that Jack only partially paid attention to.

Because the guy had a gorgeous ass, tight and round and muscled, and he was gorgeous inside, too, pushing back against Jack's fingers, eager and uninhibited and loving this, just as Jack remembered.

Jack got the condom onto himself, along with the last of the lube, and then, just as Daniel had done to him, their actions precisely reversed, he held on to Daniel's hip bones as Daniel braced against the bed. And he was inside, sheathed in all that melting tightness, and he closed his eyes and let Daniel's words and Daniel's groans encourage him and urge him on, and it was good. So good.

The past and the future fell away, and there was only this moment, this man, this bed. Jack buried himself in slick heat as Daniel pushed against him, meeting him stroke for stroke. He held back as long as he could, but defeat was certain. It was too good. Too tight. Jack couldn't fight it. He was swept up, carried away on a tide of pleasure. Too soon, he was coming, burying his moans in Daniel's hair, pressing his mouth to Daniel's neck, holding him close against the jolts of his climax.

Of both their climaxes, as it turned out, because blindly, on the ebb of his own orgasm, he groped down for Daniel's dick and met Daniel's hand instead, curled around his fading erection. Jack said, "Mm," and kissed whatever skin of shoulder and nape was convenient, and he stroked and squeezed, easing his fingers between Daniel's, feeling the spill of his come, enjoying the sliding wetness of it.

"God," Daniel said, "too much," and he jerked against Jack a little, closing his hand, protecting his dick from the stimulation Jack wanted to give it. He closed up his fingers, keeping them between Jack's and his oversensitized skin.

"Sorry," Jack said, backing off and contenting himself with tracing the wetness that was all over the back of Daniel's hand, and listening to him breathe as Jack's own breathing slowed.

"Unngh," Daniel said, or something like it, a long relaxed noise. They lay there, still joined, still together, in the half dark.

Jack must have fallen asleep, even though he didn't intend to, because he woke with a start, suddenly aware of hands on his dick. Daniel, turned toward him now, was getting the rubber off him.

"Daniel," Jack murmured, and he let his hand run along Daniel's wrist and up his arm. He could smell the remnants of the lotion he'd used for lube, something with aloe. A sweeter note mixed with the smell of sex. It was dark in the room, dark like night.

And then he was asleep for real.

****

In the hotel parking lot, in the biting chill of dawn, scrubbing the thin layer of frost off his truck's windshield, all Jack was conscious of knowing was a dumb gratitude that Daniel hadn't asked any questions, hadn't tried to make him talk.

He didn't have far to drive. Before the sun was fully up, he had gotten through the checkpoint at Peterson, and then a gallon of coffee and a long hot shower revived him fairly well. At 0900 sharp he was waiting in the conference room at the mountain, listening to the bustle of brass gathering out in the hall.

Daniel was late. Kawalsky had chauffeur duty again. Jack wondered how Daniel would look in tweed.

****

The nights of Abydos were bitingly cold, as cold as the days were hot. Cold like winter in Colorado, cold that would kill you, and the sand storms were ravenous and equally deadly.

Months later, when he'd had time to think, Jack came to believe that that was the moment when he woke up, finally. The moment he came back to life from a kind of waking death: When he was cowering helplessly in the darkness over Daniel's unconscious body, both of them being battered and scrubbed, mercilessly, by that alien storm.

Braced against the icy gusts, whipped by sand and by their rough robes, barely able to draw breath, Jack held Daniel close, and wondered detachedly if this was it, if they were going to die together right here, guarded by the strange camel-like beast, their fate forever a mystery to the people back home. Sitting there in the teeth of that storm, it was like a miracle to feel, finally, that he wanted to fight back. Somehow. That he wasn't ready to sit by and let this man die, without a fight. He would do what he had to do to complete the mission, alone, as it had to be, but he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time: that he wouldn't welcome death yet, after all, despite everything. And he was sure, sure beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Daniel Jackson wouldn't.

****

After the celebration, and after burying the dead, the remaining Air Force personnel camped out for one more night in the temple where the gate was, and so their closest friends among the Abydonians camped there, too.

Daniel was kept so busy translating that Jack was sure his tongue would sprain. Jack couldn't take his eyes off him, all that evening.

After seeing the women safely gathered behind their curtain, where they would be bedding down, Daniel had come looking for Jack, and found him, sorting through the remaining equipment from the mission, one more time. No reason to take anything back; better to leave it all for Daniel and Ska'ara to get what use out of it they could.

Daniel touched him hesitantly.

"You could stay too, you know," he offered. "You said you used to have a family. So if there's no one waiting for you..."

Jack sighed, and looked at the hand on his arm. Daniel was still wearing those robes. They'd been for camouflage, at first, but now... "Well, actually.... I do have some unfinished business. I think someone's waiting for me. At least, I hope she is."

He had to check out Daniel's expression then. See how he took this bit of news. His eyebrows went up, but he didn't react beyond that.

"At least, I owe it to her to go back and find out," Jack finished.

Daniel nodded. Daniel waited for him to say more, looking expectant, but there was really no way Jack could explain.

_I was married all along,_ he would have to say. _I thought it was working, until Charlie died, but how could I tell you about it? Long story. Too long. Complicated. But maybe, despite everything.... Maybe with Sara, there's still a chance._

He'd found hope again, hope in the jaws of death. Because of this man and his open heart.

Daniel, it was clear, had made his new start right here. Had found a home and a family. Kind of a dream come true, when you thought about it. Abydos was his life's work, made real. Not a dead civilization to study in books and graves. A living and breathing one, one he could experience, could know first hand.

But if there were to be any second chances like that for Jack, he knew where to start looking for them. He smiled, meeting Daniel's curious eyes. Just like Dorothy, he would look first in his own backyard.

****

Jack made sure to give the Ra pendant to Doctor Langford, who, he was almost sure, saw through his lies immediately, but he stuck by them all the same.

Sara, though. He had nothing, as it turned out, to bring back to Sara. Sara had had enough from him.

Jack, as the man said, had to build his own house. His own, quite solitary, back yard.

Some nights, as he sat on his roof deck at the house in the Springs and watched the stars, he wished he'd taken Daniel up on that offer to stay. Maybe it would have been better. But, on the other hand, some days, he was content, knowing Daniel was out there, with his wife, and the kids. Sha're, and Ska'ara.

Some days, that was enough.


	3. Too Long In the Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened that first night Daniel returned from Abydos in "Children of the Gods," the pilot for Stargate SG-1.

It was clear that they both said more than they had intended to or even wanted to, sitting there on the edge of their seats in Jack's mismatched living room, but once the words got rolling, they didn't stop, like a loaded train on a downhill grade.

Jack didn't even pretend to resist Daniel's obvious redirect from reminiscing about Sha're to a question about when could he meet Sara. Jack answered, with more philosophical calm than he'd given himself credit for -- huh, a year really did make a difference, and time heals all heels -- that she was gone, but that he'd learned to forget, if not to forgive.

Daniel took in this bit of poetry and pondered it. He took a swig of beer, absently, forgetting his claim that he'd had enough. Then he finally leaned back in his chair, as if settling in for a long haul, and regarded Jack levelly.

"What happened?" he said.

And Jack, to his lasting surprise, told him. In some detail.

And so they sat there for hours, trading stories -- about family, about Abydos, about lost time and missing years, filling in the gaps in their partial, painful record of each other. They talked until their throats were dry and Jack realized his knees ached and that the beer was gone and it had gotten really, really late.

Daniel was rubbing his eyes, after a story about how hard it had been for Kasuf to reabsorb the miners into the life of the city, to find enough food for them, places for them to live, after the rebellion.

"Come on," Jack said abruptly, into Daniel's echoing silence. "Let's see if I've got any sheets for the bed in the guestroom."

As they talked, Jack had watched Daniel's face intently, had carefully redrawn his mental map of the guy, matching new reality to well-worn memories. Daniel had lost weight over the past year, and he was sunburned, the V-necked t-shirt and jumpsuit they'd given him at the mountain exposing the line where his robes had protected his collar bones and throat from the desert. His nose had a permanent peel.

Jack knew Daniel was aware of him looking, and he figured the guy didn't mind the intent attention. He figured Daniel was looking too, updating too, though it was a little hard to tell. The guy's glance was everywhere as he talked, as restless as his hands, until he'd finally wound down, talking of Kasuf, who'd been like a father to him. When Jack talked, Daniel had looked at his hands, or looked just beyond Jack, still, intent, as he listened.

Daniel got up when Jack did and followed him down the hall. Jack took him to the main bathroom.

"There should be spare toothbrushes and stuff in there in a drawer. I'll find you a razor in the morning, unless you want one now."

Daniel shot him a puzzled look, but shook his head. He went in and shut the door.

Jack went on down the hall to rummage in the linen closet and find sheets, and then made up the bed in the second bedroom. He tried to remember if the bed had ever actually been slept in. Maybe Farren had crashed there, the last time the sheriff's office had poker night over here. Jack couldn't remember.

After he made the bed, he went back through his own bedroom and changed and washed up. When he came out to see if Daniel needed anything else, his guest was standing there in T-shirt and baggy white underwear, staring at the bed Jack had fixed.

"We slept on the ground," Daniel said, absently. "We had rugs, do you remember them? And stands for the lamps, and shelves, but we slept on the ground."

He looked at Jack, as if surprised to see him listening, and even more surprised that he himself had spoken aloud.

"Let me know if you need anything," Jack said quietly.

Daniel nodded, and reached to click on the bedside light. Jack was still in the doorway, so he switched off the overhead.

"Maybe," Daniel turned to him, his glasses in his hand. His face looked strangely youthful without them. Then he put them back on. "Maybe something to read?" He glanced at the bed. "I don't know if I can...."

"Sure," Jack said. "In the basement." Daniel followed him to the stairs, and down, and he began scanning the shelves Jack indicated.

Jack couldn't help himself; he just stood there behind Daniel and a little to one side and let his gaze linger on Daniel's legs, while Daniel looked at the books and magazines, shelved neatly, the magazines in cutaway boxes that displayed their spines, but in no kind of order. Jack's hands remembered the firm curve of ass under that thin white cotton, the bunch and swell of thigh muscles. Remembered two nights, no more. Two intense nights, separated by years. Two nights of warmth and connection and also a good heavy measure of oblivion.

It had been a long time, but the memories were vivid.

Daniel scanned, apparently in no hurry, picking things up, putting them down, adjusting his glasses, turning spines toward the light of the spots in the low ceiling, and finally settled on a couple of recent issues of National Geographic and an old reference book on Germany that must have been Sara's. Jack actually wasn't sure how he'd ended up with it.

He could have left Daniel there to look, and let him find his own way back upstairs, but he waited. He wanted to soak up as much of the guy as he could, while he was still here, before whatever was going to happen tomorrow, happened. And also he wondered if Daniel was purposely stalling, not wanting to go to bed, even as tired as they both were. If Daniel was doing that, Jack certainly understood the impulse. Sometimes sleep and dreams were the last things Jack wanted to face.

Daniel had made a decision on reading material, so they went back upstairs, and Jack paused again at the guest bedroom door, letting Daniel go on in but keeping his hand on the knob. "You gonna be warm enough?" he said, still reluctant, now that the very last moment had come, to leave Daniel in there alone. To go on to his own room, alone.

"I think so," Daniel said, looking at the cover of one of the magazines. Something about artifacts in some river in Serbia.

"You need anything, you holler," Jack said, gruff, wondering what he was doing still standing there, ogling the bereaved guy in his underwear, practically panting for an excuse to cop a feel. He rolled his eyes at himself.

Daniel nodded again, and Jack went off to bed.

He slept badly, with disconnected nightmares of Ra's dungeons, the screaming sound of those alien fighter jets, Sha're screaming, except it turned into Sara's voice. When Daniel turned to him with golden eyes, he shivered and woke himself up.

The light was still on down the hall, he registered. He turned over to lie on his stomach and tried again to rest.

For a while, he slept. And he had no memories of his next dreams, or even of falling asleep again, but all of a sudden he was sitting bolt upright in his bed, squinting, and there was someone, silhouetted darkly in the light from the hall, and he had a weapon in the nightstand, since it was just him now, and the drawer was sticking, goddammit, he'd told himself over and over to fix it.

"Sorry, sorry, Jack -- it's me," Daniel murmured, coming closer.

Jack scrubbed his hands in his hair and threw the tangled blankets aside.

"Sorry. This was a bad idea, sorry," Daniel said. Jack found the floor with his feet. Daniel was hugging himself.

"It wasn't a bad idea. You didn't need to spend tonight inside the mountain, goddammit," Jack said, his startlement making him sound more pissed off than he was. He groped for his new dogtags, surprised that they weren't there. He must have left them in the mountain. "What is it?"

"Don't get up; it's nothing." But Daniel just stood there, arms around his own waist, a white blur -- underwear, long pale legs. Clearly it was something

"Daniel," Jack said, warning and plea all at once.

"Just, lie down. Go back to bed."

"Daniel!"

Daniel stood still.

Jack, awake now, peered at him. "Couldn't sleep, huh," Jack offered, since Daniel still wasn't saying anything. "I don't blame you." Jack thought of getting up, rooting around in the bathroom for some Nyquil, maybe an antihistamine, unless the doctors Hammond had brought in had already shot Daniel up with so much of that kind of stuff that he couldn't have any more. Or failing that, Jack could at least make the guy a glass of warm milk.

He scratched his head and tried to summon the energy to stand.

"Can-I-sleep-in-here-with-you," Daniel said, suddenly and softly, and rapidly like he had to blurt it out or not say it at all.

"What?" Jack said. He was pretty sure he'd heard right. He just couldn't believe it.

Daniel stood there. Then he shook his head and started to turn away. "Sorry," he said. "Dumb idea."

"Of course you can," Jack said, flooded by surprise and some quite inappropriate, abruptly reawakened longings. He remembered quite well what it felt like to sleep with Daniel, to wake up with him, and to do a bunch more stuff than sleep. He certainly had no objection. Not to any of it.

Daniel stopped leaving. He turned back toward the bed. And Jack noticed he wasn't wearing his glasses. Must have left them down the hall. Jack lay back down and started to scoot over, but Daniel was going around to the other side of the bed.

"Thank you," he mumbled as he got in and tugged at the covers. "I know it sounds childish, but..."

"Hey," Jack said. "Stop apologizing. I would have offered, but..."

"Yeah," Daniel said. They were both flat on their backs now, and their eyes met, and then Daniel closed his.

Jack wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to roll in and take hold of the guy and fold him close, wrap him up. He wanted to do a lot more than that, actually, but that would do to start.

But all he could think of was the way Sha're had kissed Daniel, kissed her husband, there at the camp inside the temple. Right before the team left. Right before it all went to shit. Sha're loved Daniel. They were in love.

Sure they were, and Jack had been in love with Sara, at the time he made the first pass at this guy, a lifetime ago in a bar in Wrigleyville. But that night was different than tonight. Wasn't it?

Either way, it wasn't up to him this time. No matter that they had talked, out there in the living room, like Jack hadn't talked to anyone, ever. He had no name for what Daniel had become to him. The connection between them was still so electric, like a brewing, high-voltage, spring storm. He'd never stopped feeling it. It was why he'd moved down here, to where the mountain was, to where the gate was, after Sara. He was sure Daniel still felt the same connection, despite everything.

Daniel lay there on his back, unmoving, with his eyes squeezed shut.

Jack rolled away, to his side, so he could stop looking at Daniel, stop being tempted, stop wondering if Daniel was squinting like that in order to hold back tears. And then he had to squeeze his own eyes shut because Daniel was fitting himself to Jack's back -- lean and long and warm, except for his feet, which--motherfuck--were cold like ice-cubes... Jack didn't flinch, though. Sara'd always had cold toes too. She used to sleep in socks from September to May.

And after a moment of hesitation in which Jack did nothing but exhale his relief, Daniel's arm groped around his middle, under the blanket, and his hips snugged in against Jack's butt. He was soft, there, but his groin was the warmest part of him.

"It'll be all right," Jack said, automatically, and he let his weight ease back against Daniel and he covered Daniel's arm with his own.

"I wish I could believe you," Daniel whispered.

Amazingly, as the minutes ticked by, Jack heard his breathing change, felt him get relaxed and heavy. Felt his toes warm up. Daniel fell asleep, and so, eventually, Jack did too. The last thing he thought before he drifted off, lulled by the rhythm of Daniel's breathing, was how fan-fucking-tastic it felt to have someone in bed with him again. He never let himself think about how much he hated sleeping alone. But having Daniel pressed against his back felt great. Despite everything.

He woke, blinking, to the soft light of earliest dawn, and the knowledge that there were warm, careful hands on him, moving slowly and with perfect pressure, poised precisely between tinklish and the firm glide of a massage. He wondered, as he drifted into full consciousness, how long Daniel'd been touching him. How long his body had let it happen, all his internal alarms calmed by the touch and the scent of someone already so far inside his perimeter that even his hair-triggered hindbrain had quit registering anything Daniel did as threat.

Usually Jack was a little more able to assess, to think, than this. But it had been a very, very weird seventy-two hours.

He opened his eyes, and there was Daniel, so close, so intent, biting his lower lip, looking at Jack's face as his warm, warm hands caressed, explored, got reacquainted. He'd taken his clothes off.

"Daniel," Jack said, softly, easily, just registering presence with sound.

And Daniel smiled, just a little, and without another word he slid down, curling himself against Jack's legs, and his hot wet mouth slid right over Jack's morning erection.

Jack did flinch then, but in surprise, flinched toward not away, and a groan escaped him. They'd never done that. They'd done a bunch of other stuff, but not that.

"God," Jack said, and put his hands in Daniel's hair and closed his eyes.

It was so urgent, like Daniel wanted to get it over with right away, like he was breaking out all the quick tricks he knew -- squeezing with his left hand, cupping Jack's balls with his right, and the things he did with suction and with his tongue -- "Jesus!" Jack called, and his arousal was taking off like an F-16 in a vertical climb straight off the runway, like an airshow jet jockey.

He wanted to slow it down, slow Daniel down, to ask him, "What's the hurry?" ask him, "Are you just showing off or are you trying to kill me?", but he couldn't talk, couldn't think, and pretty soon he could barely breathe.

It had been a long time, and this guy had his number -- had always had his number, according to his dormant alarms -- and all too soon Jack was gasping and coming, clutching Daniel's head way too tightly, calling his name as he pumped helplessly into that gorgeous mouth, feeling memories of that mouth on his own, overwhelmed, lost in Daniel.

Daniel swallowed it all, waited it out, clutching Jack's hips in a grip that soon became almost painful. Then, as Jack's frantic breathing slowed, Daniel pulled off, slowly, not letting Jack's soft dick flop around, but stretching it carefully to one side. He pulled off Jack's boxers, and then he lay down again, resting his forehead on the bony point of Jack's hip, still hanging on so tightly. And the words poured out of him.

"I know how this goes, okay? No pressure. I'm just kind of beside myself right now and I'm sorry if this is taking advantage; I really had no idea what to expect when you invited me over and I know I said too much last night, said more than you wanted to hear, talked your ear off, but you're pretty much the only person on Earth, and it's so funny to say that and to mean it precisely literally, who could possibly understand any of this. And so I'm very conscious of taking advantage here, taking advantage of your generosity or your former attraction or whatever it is and I'm feeling very selfish and I know just exactly how that looks. So you don't have to say anything and if maybe you wanted to touch me for a minute, just put your hand on me, I'm pretty much about to go off like a rocket here, but if that's something I could ask you for that would be really, um, nice isn't the right word but it will have to do for now. God, I sound like an idiot. You don't have to say anything."

"Daniel, I would say something if I could get a fucking word in edgewise."

"Sorry, sorry."

"Goddammit, stop it. Come here."

Jack would have done just about anything at that point to get the guy to shut up. God, that overheated brain. Jack remembered the first time they'd met, how Daniel had lectured him about the stupid hieroglyphics, in that bar.

He got his floppy hands working and found Daniel's armpits and yanked. He got his arms around Daniel's middle and rolled them so he could press Daniel in to himself, one hand at the small of his back, which, if he remembered right, was a sweet spot. He found Daniel's mouth.

He tasted himself, and unshed tears. He kissed Daniel hard, aggressively, and was met with all the coiled energy he remembered so well. Daniel had pushed him up against the door of his old apartment. Daniel, in that hotel room in the Springs, not a mile away from here as the crow flew, had pushed back, had groaned so joyously, as Jack had fucked him, giving back everything Jack had given him. Now all that energy was turned in on itself, doing something to Daniel, making him act like an animal with one leg in a trap.

Daniel was kissing back, clutching at Jack like someone drowning.

Jack realized he had rolled on top, had pinned Daniel, and Daniel was hard as a rock and trying to move under him, trying to rub his erection against Jack's hip.

Jack freed his mouth and said, "Now shut up. You've got it all wrong."

Daniel shook his head, his eyes squeezed shut. "God, Jack, just let me get off and I'll go back to the guest room. Please, just--" And he wriggled, trying to get purchase against Jack's sweaty hip.

"Daniel," Jack said, urgent now, pissed off, hands on his shoulders, and he slid to one side, leaving Daniel to twitch for a second, nothing to push against, his dick in the air. Daniel opened his eyes and frowned at Jack, thwarted. His hands clawed at Jack's spine.

"Quit assuming things, okay? Just shut up. Just listen."

Daniel put his hands over his face.

But Jack didn't have anything to say that he wanted to make Daniel listen to. All he wanted was for Daniel to shut up, and to feel. He pressed a kiss to Daniel's forehead, and then, after one brief orienting glance at the clock, he put everything outside of the bed out of his mind. Which wasn't actually hard to do. His current mission had an extremely compelling objective. He pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it away.

Dawn was coming on, slowly, bringing the room out of grey to white, and then gold, and by that glimmering light, Jack explored.

He ran his hands along the lean curves and planes of Daniel's body, noticing how for the first few minutes the change of tempo made Daniel's hard-on fade.

Jack took his time, touching everywhere he craved to touch, skipping nothing, touching all the places where Daniel's skin called him -- rough places and smooth, curves of bone and slabs of muscle. It was hypnotic. Eventually he closed his eyes, not opening them again until he'd worked his way down to pressing a kiss to the arch of Daniel's left foot. He couldn't see Daniel's eyes from this angle, but his hands had fallen away from his face and his arms were lying limp, one hand curled, open-palmed. His hard-on, however, was back with a vengeance.

Jack smiled, and kissed and smoothed his way carefully back up, ankle and calf and knee and thigh, until he, in his turn, could take Daniel into his mouth.

His blowjob couldn't have been more different than Daniel's, except maybe for the part where he was showing off. Daniel had been fast, urgent, desperate to taste him, desperate to make him explode. Jack was all delay and anticipation, all teasing, a game of edging, all backbeat and brushes.

He had Daniel groaning, finally, and he'd rebuilt all the tension he'd smoothed out of him earlier, and he couldn't help smiling, letting his tongue slide down the rougher skin at the base of Daniel's cock, then changing it up, to kiss through the patch of hair, and then use his tongue on Daniel's tight balls.

"Please," Daniel said, finally. Nothing else. "Please...."

Seconds ticked by, slow, slower, and finally Jack worked his way back up to the sweet spot and closed his mouth just there, just around the head. He put the flat of his tongue against the sensitive arrow of flesh, and sucked.

Daniel cried out and his hips came up, following his orgasm. Jack let the thrust push Daniel farther into his mouth, and waited it out. Daniel didn't come in a rush, but in a series of pulses, each weaker than the last.

Jack had never been any good at swallowing, and he didn't try for it now. He took down a little, but then he opened his mouth and rested his tongue against the side of Daniel's still-hard dick, not trying to stop the flow of come from running back down over his hand. He stroked a little, where he was still holding Daniel's shaft, now slick with come, and Daniel groaned again and his hips rocked again and the pulses got momentarily stronger.

Jack smiled around the head and kept squeezing the base until Daniel's ecstatic groans changed note, signaling "too much" instead of "keep doing that." His hips were quivering.

Finally Jack eased Daniel from his mouth, and rolled to his side without moving away. He rested his head on Daniel's thigh, cupping his hand over Daniel's dick. The gentle spasms continued, though, the shaking and the quivering in belly and hips, and Jack frowned and raised his head. Daniel's hands were back over his face.

_God,_ Jack thought, and pulled himself up, quickly, and made Daniel come into his arms, though Daniel tried to resist.

Jack ignored that and held him close, then closer, then tightly, until he'd stopped Daniel's shoulders from shaking, and Jack kissed his forehead, nudged his hands aside with kisses, kissed the corners of his eyes, kissed the tears.

"God, Jack, I'm sorry, I feel like an idiot, I just--" Daniel's voice was clogged.

"Baby, sshh," Jack said, and pushed Daniel's face in against his neck.

They lay there for a while. Eventually Daniel quieted.

"It's all my fault, you know," Daniel said, when the morning was full in the room and the shadows were sharp. His voice was muffled against Jack's neck, but calm and strong. Not quavery. "It was my curiosity about the cartouche room that let this happen. If I'd kept the gate buried, like we agreed...."

Jack let him trail off. He couldn't argue, not about this. Sure, he could reassure, say that it wasn't Daniel's fault, ultimately, that the blame and the crime lay with those aliens, those things, whatever Ra had been, the thing like Ra and the alien soldiers. He could insist it wasn't really Daniel's fault.

But he knew Daniel wouldn't believe him. Daniel wouldn't even be able to hear it, to take it in. Jack knew this because he knew how he had felt when people used to tell him not to blame himself. He could still hear the voices, echoing clearly, some nights when he didn't want to sleep.

"She was kidnapped because of me. It's my fault."

All he could do was tighten his arms, and when Daniel felt that, once again he stopped talking.

"Sleep some more," Jack said, his chin on the back of Daniel's head. "Go back to sleep. We've got another hour or so. Just this once. Take a break, here. Go back to sleep."

Daniel sighed, long and sorrowful. Jack cupped his skull, stroked his hair. He thought Daniel dozed a little.

Soon, so soon, damn that inexorable clock, they'd get up, and follow the smell of coffee into the kitchen. He'd find some clothes for Daniel to wear, and they'd go up the mountain and down to the gate and maybe Ferretti would wake up, would survive, and the chase would begin.

But for now, Jack thought, they could have this. Both of them. _Please,_ he asked silently, listening to Daniel breathe, without the slightest idea whose gods he would invoke with his words, or if anyone was really listening at all, _please,_ he thought, _let us just have this. Just this._

^^^^

_"I've been too long in the wind, too long in the rain  
Taking any comfort that I can  
Now I'm looking back and longing for the freedom of our chains  
And lying in your loving arms again."_


	4. Thinking Is Overrated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episode tag for S1 "The Enemy Within".

Hammond had handled most of the notifications, and all the official ones, but Jack had assigned himself the duty of calling Kawalsky's mother and Kawalsky's ex. Hammond didn't know them personally, see. But Jack did. Because Charlie had taken him home. More than once. Back in the day.

After those two telephone calls, the paperwork remaining on his desk made him itch, in an angry way. A very angry way. It was an itch that was unscratchable, and it would only get worse for a while. Jack knew this from experience. There was a kid, somewhere, too, from a yet earlier marriage. Jack had known that as a fact, but had no name or other solid information. The ex confirmed the existence of a mostly grown, maybe college age, young man, vaguely knew how to find him, maybe; Jack offered to make that call too, but she was in no shape to give him details or go look up what she remembered of said details (a Christmas card? An invitation? Something through her ex-in-laws? --she wasn't clear) while he waited. He promised to call back soon.

Charlie's mother, whom Jack had called first, had been upset and Jack had been braced for that, but he hadn't been braced for how upset the ex was. Although if he'd thought about it, he could have. It was easy to believe that Kawalsky was the kind of guy you didn't get over. The kind of guy who left good memories behind, even after a divorce. With Kawalsky, it would be the bad memories that would fade.

After those calls, Jack tried to stay busy and think of pie. The mountain swirled around him, like a disturbed ant hill. Teal'c and Daniel were hard at work and nearly overwhelmed, as it was the two of them who bore the brunt of talking to the Chulak prison refugees and preparing to send them back to their own planets. This involved recording their languages as well as squeezing intel out of them. Daniel, Jack had to admit, had a real talent for getting right to the useful information, yet doing so in a very humane way. Carter was busy right along with them, programming the computer for the various destinations, spelling Siler and the short-handed, overworked techs whose seemingly endless job it was to check all those destinations with MALPs before sending anyone through the gate.

Jack's part of the cleanup job from the Chulak mission was mostly bureaucratic and formal. It made no difference that he sucked at that stuff. He did his part, and he did it methodically, ignoring the fact that Kawalsky's death and the phonecalls afterward had put Ska'ara, Charlie, Sara, Kawalsky himself, the others -- Jack's entire list of the dead, missing and lost -- on a permanent tape loop. Sound and pictures. Memories. He made Teal'c spar with him, when they both took a brief break. After, Teal'c offered meditation; Jack, sweaty and only a little distracted, said hell no.

When he had another hour to spare, a day or so later, he escaped and went to the range. It helped the itchy feeling. A little. At least after that he stopped replaying the part of the tape loop that featured the snake squirming out of Kawalsky's head and falling through the grill of the gate ramp.

It was a weird, claustrophobic, ugly, noisy, few days. He supposed he'd better get used to it.

Finally, trying to get back on some kind of schedule before Hammond started barking orders at what was left of the two flagship teams, Jack had visited the much-improved Ferretti one more time and then headed out, away from the mountain. It was an evening in early spring, the sunset shadow dimming the valley to grey while the sky above was still a bright heavenly blue. Jack told himself he was going to the grocery store on his way home. But at the bottom of the mountain he turned east, and pretty soon he found himself going very much out of his way, driving, in fact, all the way through downtown to swing by Daniel's building, instead of hitting the grocery story and looping back home. Daniel's name had been four above his on the sign-out ledger.

In the middle of all this mess with Kawalsky's surgery and death, Daniel, oh the mundanity of it all, had been trying to sign a lease on a place of his own. Trying to move out of the mountain and into an apartment in town, now that he was ... back.

_What a mess,_ Jack thought, and not for the first time.

He slowed as he drove by the building, then turned left, onto the quieter cross street. He could see lights on in the windows of the corner apartment on the top floor, east side, which he knew was Daniel's. He'd intended to merely drive by, see if any progress had been made, see if there was a moving van outside or something. But he found himself parking the truck, drawn by those lights in the window, like a moth. Daniel's motor pool car was in the tiny parking lot tucked behind the building. He'd be car shopping next, Jack guessed.

_"I've got to get out of this mountain,"_ Daniel had said. _"I don't do well with heights or with this kind of long-term claustrophobia, and it's about to make me run screaming."_

And Jack had thought, suddenly, sharply, _Move in with me. Stay at my place._ But he hadn't said it aloud. His memory of saying almost those exact words to Teal'c interfered, and also his guilt that despite Teal'c's obvious heroism, Washington still had him filed under "traitor." Both those things were swirling through his head when he had talked to Daniel about Daniel's plans, even though his motives for wanting to say the words to Daniel were quite different than the motives that had caused him to spontaneously invite Teal'c home with him. Also he was ashamed at noticing how lonely he was and ashamed of thinking he could suggest something to Daniel that would look so goddamn inappropriate. Especially since the guy had convinced Hammond that he had to be on the team -- Jack's team. Which Jack was all for. Except for the part about the baggage he and Daniel had. Lots of baggage. Jack hadn't tried to command anyone he'd slept with before. He was pretty sure that usually ended badly. And he'd never been faced with a mixed military/civilian team, nor anything involving alien invasions, either. Of course.

Well, maybe having slept with Daniel a few times was going to be the least of his worries with this team, this mission. Come to think of it.

Daniel's new apartment wasn't new at all. The building was old, high ceiling-ed and repeatedly remodeled, teetering on the edge of being historic. You could see that in the long hallways where the old gas fixtures had been wired for electricity -- twice. It had been ritzy once. And it wasn't exactly run down now, but the carpet was worn and the plaster was cracked.

Pretty much perfect for Daniel, Jack had to admit.

The door of Daniel's apartment was ajar.

"Hello?" Jack said, tapping with two knuckles.

Daniel perched on a big cardboard box, his back to the door, a book open on his knee. The smell of oily hot bread, tomato sauce and onions filled the cluttered room. Daniel had ordered pizza. Jack's stomach clenched and saliva filled his mouth. He probably had skipped lunch, he realized. He couldn't remember what he'd eaten then. He remembered breakfast -- coffee and Froot Loops in the commissary. But not lunch.

"Jack," Daniel said, twisting around in surprise. "I thought the pizza guy forgot something; you just missed him. Damn, I should have ordered two."

_"Well, I didn't call ahead,"_ Jack opened his mouth to say, but Daniel was already turning away from him and muttering, "But you didn't call, did you."

Jack shook his head. Guy could read his mind. He sat down on the corner of a convenient box. The apartment was apparently being rented partially furnished. There were bookshelves -- lots of empty bookshelves -- and a piano, and an odd assortment of carpets, some of which looked expensive, and some strangely mismatched furniture. Knick knacks -- Daniel would probably call them artifacts -- and books spilled out of boxes. Lots of boxes.

"I wish," Daniel said around his mouthful of pizza, flipping pages in the book on his lap and then reaching one-handed for another book, which he piled on the ones already precariously stacked on his knees, "that I had made more of a study of clothing in the cultures co-existent with the Ptolemaic, and I wish even more that I knew something about typical evolutions of clothing styles over time. I am almost certain that there were a dozen or more people we just sent home who are speaking something that sounds like a precursor to Arabic, but it's going to be next to impossible to verify..." and he went off on a few paragraphs of linguistic drift this and cross-pollenization that, topping it off with a string of names of gods and goddesses that sounded like something out of the Old Testament to Jack.

"So all the refugees gone, then?" Jack asked, helping himself to a slice of pizza studded with a miserly number of pepperoni rounds, and peeling a bottle of water out of the six-pack on the floor next to the Domino's box. Have to do something about Daniel's taste in pizza. Clearly he hadn't discovered the good place yet. But then, he'd only managed to begin moving out of the mountain in the last 36 hours or so.

_Should have him in with me,_ Jack said to himself, again, despite his earlier vow to not go there, and _save everybody a bunch of grief,_ tacked itself on too, before he could shut himself down. An incredibly tempting thought. Too tempting.

Married. Daniel was married. Focus on that.

Daniel was still reading at least three books, chewing, muttering, and taking notes.

Jack munched his way through two big slices of the mediocre pizza, finished a bottle of water, and got up to go searching in the kitchen. He didn't think about how informally he was acting. How he'd made himself at home. There was no beer in the fridge or in the cupboards, but standing by the sink there was a bottle of red zinfandel from California with a cork in it and about one glass' worth missing. He poked around in some boxes on the floor, found one the contained dishes, and unearthed a couple of mismatched glasses. He rinsed them in the sink and poured two glasses of wine.

When Daniel looked up with a puzzled frown and took one, Jack said, "Where in the hell did all this stuff come from? I remember you telling me that all your earthly possessions were in that one suitcase that the guys pitched down the side of a sand dune."

"Oh. Right," Daniel said, glancing around. He sipped the wine and put it on the floor, and picked up his pen again. A half eaten slice of pizza was on a paper plate beside him on the floor. Jack stood there, tasting his wine. The sweep of Daniel's hair against the hard line of his jaw made a strange contrast that Jack couldn't seem to stop looking at. In his world, men had short hair. Watching Daniel squint and chew on his pen and juggle the stuff in his lap to get at the wine again.... it took him back, to the seventies. Like a time warp.

Daniel was talking again. Jack had been watching his mouth and had missed the first part.

"... because of Catherine Langford. I had given up on all of it for lost, because when my grants had run out, it was all still in storage in Chicago, and I didn't have the money to keep paying the storage company, but it turns out that when she was in charge of the research program here, she tracked down my creditors and paid several of my bills, including that one, and then the program just kept on paying the storage for me. All this time. Even though I was supposed to be dead."

"Wow," Jack said. "For once the bureaucracy does something right."

"Yeah.... I wanted to find her and thank her, but General Hammond said I couldn't. He says she's no longer involved with the program at all. That because of the risk, after Apophis came through here, there's no way we can bring in anyone else who's not strictly military. Even her."

"Ah."

Daniel put the wine down. "You know that's a mistake, Jack. There are plenty of trustworthy people in my field, people who know the language, who can read hieroglyphics, who could help us. Catherine could help us too; this was her life's work."

"But for now, it's just you and Teal'c. Our two resident experts on the rest of people of the galaxy."

Daniel laughed bitterly. "Yeah, how's that for a fucked-up situation."

"He told you, huh." Jack drank all the wine in his glass and went back for more.

"Yes, he told me. I can't decide if I wish I didn't know, or if I'm grateful that since I had to find out sometime, that I found out right away."

Daniel paused, and pushed his glasses up with his fingertips and rubbed his eyes. Then he went back to making notes, scribbling faster than before. His hair fell in his eyes.

Jack didn't really think there was anything he could say to that. Teal'c had chosen Sha're to host Apophis' queen as one of his last official acts before changing sides.

Some days you couldn't win for losing.

Jack refilled his wine, trying not to think about Ska'ara, and went back to poking around in boxes. There apparently was no television in the place, or among Daniel's old things, but he found a radio, and after he plugged it in he lay down on the sofa, and propped the set on his chest and scanned the stations until he found a baseball game.

Daniel kept writing and reading. Jack studied the ceiling cracks and listened to the Rockies. Their announcer was very calm. Maybe too calm. Jack himself hadn't really warmed to the Rockies yet either. He wanted to like them, but he could already tell he would never prefer them over the White Sox or even the Twins. Tonight they were at home against Houston, so it made it easy to know who to cheer for. Jack had no particular feelings for Texas.

Suddenly Daniel stopped writing and stared straight ahead, his pen falling from his fingers.

"I'm an idiot," he said. "A thoughtless idiot. Jack."

Jack smiled, just a little, still looking at the ceiling. "It's okay, Daniel. I didn't come over here so I could talk about it."

Daniel put his head in his hands for a minute, then he grappled for the wine glass and drank. He realized he hadn't finished his pizza, and he put aside his books and his note pad and pulled the plate back onto his lap and ate, reflectively, then ate a second piece. He drank all his wine and got up, a little stiffly, Jack thought, and went into the kitchen and poured. Jack heard it gurgling into the glass.

"I have proper goblets," Daniel called. "Somewhere. I had a girlfriend back in Chicago who insisted I get them. Said wine didn't taste right otherwise."

But Daniel didn't search for the box of goblets. He came back with his wine in the same tumbler Jack found and sat down on the floor, crosslegged, at Jack's head. Jack remembered the glimpse of Daniel's apartment in Chicago that he'd had, once. A long time ago. It had been cluttered. Not this cluttered, but close.

Daniel just sat there, looking at his wine. Jack was pretty sure he wasn't listening to the game.

The Rockies scored, and the crowd cheered. The announced was quietly approving.

"He was your friend," Daniel said, also quietly.

"Yeah," Jack said.

"Close friend."

"Yeah, pretty much. We were in Special Ops together. Going back a ways."

Jack didn't know if he wanted to talk about it or not, though Daniel was inviting. They could; the two of them had talked about stuff, before. The night Daniel came back -- got dragged back, more like it.

And Daniel had known Kawalsky, too. They had all been through it, Daniel and the three of them. The very first wave of survivors, Jack thought, distractedly, remembering the strangely dressed people milling around the gateroom this week. He and Kawalsky and Ferretti had come back, stumbling through the stargate, once, just like that. Had been the survivors; had stood there, a little lost, on that ramp, been the reason for the shocked looks on the faces of another set of gateroom techs....

Jack sighed without realizing he was going to.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Daniel said, and then Daniel was touching him -- he reached up and rested two careful fingers on Jack's hand where it lay on his chest.

Jack opened his hand and Daniel turned his, and they were holding hands, there, in Daniel's new living room. Jack closed his eyes. Daniel sat there on the floor, not letting go.

It looked for a while like the game might go into extra innings, but Houston was able to get a double on the Rockies' fading pitcher in the ninth, and then it was over. Right on time.

Jack let go of Daniel's hand to turn off the radio. The silence seemed loud in the apartment after the game and the crowd noise were gone.

"It's late," Daniel said, like it was just occurring to him. Jack curled up, starting to sit, but Daniel's hand was back, pushing at his chest. So he lay back down.

Daniel said, "I just... I didn't even think. About any of it. You came in here and I realize now I just assumed you knew you could stay. Talk, not talk, whatever. But you can. Stay. Tonight."

Jack looked at him and frowned. Daniel actually blushed. Then he got up and began closing books, putting bookmarks ripped from his notepad in some of them. Closed all his books and stacked them on the bookshelf that divided the door area from the living area.

Jack got to his feet as Daniel disappeared down a short hallway. It turned out it was a one-bedroom apartment.

Jack stood in the doorway looking at the bed, which had sheets and blankets and was messily unmade, from the previous night. He heard water running. The bed was a regular double. There were books on the floor, but not much furniture in the room other than the bed.

Daniel brushed by him, squeezing his arm as he came, and Jack went out of the bedroom and into the bathroom himself.

When Jack returned, Daniel had turned off nearly all the lights in the place and was already under the covers. Jack began to undress, slowly, and after a moment's thought he went ahead and undressed completely.

Maybe Daniel would take that as a signal, maybe not. Before, last time, at his own place, Jack had gone to bed in his underwear like he usually did. Not knowing what Daniel would want, if anything. Assuming they'd sleep apart.

But now.... Well, skin was always good. With or without extra activities other than sleeping. As Jack slid into bed, he thought he heard Daniel sigh. Daniel turned right to him and gathered him up. It was overwhelming -- the warmth under the covers, the clean animal smell of the bed, of someone else, someone Jack already felt closer to than he had any right to feel.

He held Daniel against him, letting Daniel hug him tightly, and he put his face in Daniel's hair. Soap and pizza and a faint bite of dust and wine. Daniel was warm. Warm all over. And, yes, naked, too.

_Oh, good,_ Jack thought.

His lust and longing for this man surged up inside him all at once, and he turned his head the little it took to find Daniel's mouth and kiss him, starting the kisses before he actually got to his mouth, so that Jack's lips could savor the sandpapery stubble, as well as the full effect of the shocking contrast of the plush softness of Daniel's lips. Jack put a hand to his cheek and relaxed on his side, sinking into the pillow, and Daniel followed him down, kissing him back.

Soon they were rocking together gently, dicks bumping and sliding, but mostly enjoying the kissing. Jack was running his hand along Daniel's spine, letting it slip along the curve of his ass, but then pulling it back up, and he did that a few times and it made Daniel grunt into his mouth and kiss him harder.

Jack had started to get hard pretty much as soon as he got into the bed, and Daniel had been hard already when he'd pulled Jack to him. Jack's thoughts were dissolving quickly in the wave of comfort that was Daniel's scent and touch. The world was still out there, their world and the other worlds, full of people, threatened by enemies, but for now, he didn't have to think about that.

"God, Jack," Daniel was murmuring, and it was hard to choose between cupping Daniel's jaw so as to feel him kissing back, and rearranging his weight so he could grip Daniel by the hips and grind into him. Captivated by the feel of Daniel's face under his palm, he hesitated, and Daniel beat him to deciding how to move, what to do next -- warm hands crept around his hips, and Daniel pulled Jack against him hard, holding him so as to rub his dick against Jack's, doubling the intensity of the sensations. Jack moaned.

Daniel squeezed his hips in that way that meant, "Hang on, wait," and Jack stilled everything he was doing. He kept his eyes closed, and dropped his hands. Daniel rolled away, rummaged and made the bed bounce, then cursed and got up.

Jack rolled onto his back, trying to keep the wave of arousal going in this little break, and trying not to think. He touched himself, touched the wet streaks Daniel had left him with, tugged and stroked a little, and ran his tongue behind his teeth, still feeling Daniel. It was good.

Here he came back -- rush of cool air as he pulled the covers aside and back, the slide of skin slightly less warm than before. Daniel was clutching what they'd need if they intended to fuck. He dropped the tube and a couple of squares of foil between their pillows and pulled Jack close again. More kissing, more wet intense mind-blowing kissing. Jack was a little distracted by the idea of what Daniel had brought to the bed. Was he just being thoroughly prepared, just in case, or did he have something specific in mind? On the other hand: What did Jack want tonight? Hard to say, since he'd spent the better part of two days trying not to think at all, and the drive over here denying his destination.

Daniel had slowed everything down, throttled back. He was petting in broad smooth strokes now, deliberately, up and down Jack's back, lingering to caress his ass, kissing him all the while. Jack held on tight and kissed back, pressed back.

After a while Daniel pushed his shoulder, turning Jack so that he could slide on top, and Jack smiled his agreement against Daniel's mouth. Daniel smiled, too, and drew out a kiss, while he curved up to sit on Jack's thighs, with his dick and balls snugged up against Jack's. The air was cool on Jack's chest, and his nipples reacted. When Daniel broke the kiss, Jack covered Daniel's dick and then stroked it, admiring. Daniel groaned a little, but he was reaching for a rubber and unwrapping it. Jack pressed his legs apart, expecting Daniel to rise up on his knees and let Jack change positions preparatory to him snugging Jack's knees in his elbows. A good position, though not one Jack had gotten to experience very often, but excellent for getting to it while indulging in some more of that delirium-inducing kissing... but that wasn't what Daniel apparently had in mind.

They'd done this both ways, and Jack, like he'd told Daniel the very first time they'd been together, didn't necessarily have to do it at all -- plenty of exciting or tender or raunchy ways to get off in addition to fucking and he'd love to explore the ones they hadn't done yet, just as much as he'd enjoyed that, top or bottom. But Daniel surprised him. He took his bottom lip between his teeth, and carefully rolled the rubber onto Jack. Then, glancing at Jack's face to gauge his reaction, Daniel squeezed out some lube and covered the condom with it. Jack flinched and then shut his eyes at the cool kiss of the gel on his very hard dick. It was soothing and exciting at the same time; another sense-confusing, pleasant collision of contrasts.

_Like hot fudge on ice cream,_ he thought, distractedly, _except the other way around._

Daniel arched, then, and Jack felt it and opened his eyes. Daniel was reaching around behind himself, eyes closed, all inward concentration. Jack rested careful hands on his thighs and watched his lips register the touch -- almost a smile. But mostly Jack watched Daniel's dick, and felt how his warm weight shifted and dragged across Jack's legs as he lubed himself. Then, still with eyes closed, Daniel unerringly and gently braced Jack's dick against his asshole and slowly, millimeter by millimeter, eased down.

Jack groaned. He couldn't remember ever doing this in this position -- not with a guy, anyway. It was wonderful and strange -- the sensations were those which usually involved him doing the moving, him pushing, him controlling, but he was feeling all that while flat on his back, simply along for the ride.

It was gloriously tight but somehow not quite slick enough -- maybe Daniel had been in too much of a hurry and hadn't used enough lube, maybe it was the condom -- but that didn't really matter. It was mostly about the weight on his pelvis and the tightness around his dick, and not about the sliding friction that generally set him immediately on an approach vector for orgasm.

He could do this all night.

Daniel moved on him, slowly, settling into the penetration, which must be, Jack figured, extra deep in this position, and of course Daniel controlled it all, made it happen so that it would be good for him. His cock was leaking now, and harder than ever -- red and stiff, a blunt head more rounded than triangular at the tip. Gorgeous. Jack reached for it, and remembered at the last second how sensitive Daniel had gotten after coming, the second time they'd been together. If Jack started stroking him now he'd probably go through the ceiling, and not in the good way. So he laid his hand gently against Daniel's belly, curling his thumb over the tightly squashed balls, two fingers over the thick base, pressing into the sparse hair.

Daniel groaned and shook his head and met Jack's eyes. He looked drugged, blissed out. And he didn't push Jack's hand away.

"No-- more-- than-- that," he said, breathless.

"I remember," Jack murmured. So fucking gorgeous.

Jack couldn't stop watching Daniel's face. As exquisite as the sliding pressure on his dick was, he was entirely distracted by Daniel's changing expressions. He rested his palm on Daniel's thigh, enjoying the subtle bunch and stretch of the muscles as Daniel moved, and gently cupped the base of his dick with the other. Daniel's eyes were closed now. One hand braced on the wall, and the other crept almost without its owner's volition to find Jack's hand. Daniel was obviously very, very into this. His face gradually lost focus and went slack with pleasure, and a gentle flush started at his collarbones and spread upward, into his cheeks. His breath came faster, and his dick got harder the longer his careful, measured movements went on. Jack was hypnotized.

After what seemed like a long time, Daniel smiled, and then he opened his eyes and met Jack's. He was panting. He must be so close. God. Jack started to move the hand on Daniel's dick, figuring he must want to finish it this way, and he got a distinct new jolt to his own very happy, very hard dick at the thought of Daniel coming in white ribbons all over Jack's stomach. But Daniel stopped him, quickly. Grabbed Jack's hand before he could move it much, and Daniel carefully peeled both of Jack's hands away from himself and put them on the mattress, near Jack's shoulders. Another little buzz of unfamiliar pleasure, new suggestive connections lighting up in Jack's brain, at that -- Daniel above him, controlling where he put his hands. Daniel's smile faded to one corner of his mouth, making him look sly, as if he could read Jack's thoughts. And he leaned down for a kiss.

Complete overload -- Jack had not been aware of how turned on the rest of his skin was getting as he watched Daniel fuck himself on Jack's cock. He'd been mostly focused on his dick, of course, and he'd been drinking in Daniel's expression like some kind of rare elixir, but that kiss -- it made him buck, and growl, and grab at Daniel's back. Sparks flew in a direct, pouring connection from his mouth to his groin.

But Daniel pulled up and out of the kiss very soon. He shifted, and reached behind again, managing the rubber as he gently but deliberately pulled up and off.

"More lube," he gasped, and his roll to one side was more of a controlled fall. Jack curled up, following him, the loss of the connection to skin almost unbearable. Their legs tangled, awkwardly, and then Daniel was on his hands and knees, sprawling, presenting his ass to Jack.

"God," Jack groaned, because looking at him, looking at the tender skin, the way the dark pink around Daniel's already well-fucked asshole contrasted with the pale cheeks, all framed by the firm lines of muscle in his thighs -- Jack moved fast, getting more lube, slopping it onto himself, and he rolled onto his knees and squeezed the base of his dick. Then he paused, balanced, to trace the lip of the muscled hole, just feel it with his middle finger and then his thumb. He'd put fingers in Daniel to open him, but he'd never looked at him like this. Never looked at anyone like this, male or female. He was shocked to notice that he wanted to put his mouth there, put his tongue inside Daniel.

_Next time,_ he promised himself, and groaned again at the thought.

He seated the tip and leaned over and eased right in, back in to that incredible welcoming heat, snugging his belly and chest up against Daniel's sweaty spine, and Daniel jolted against him, crying out, when he felt Jack slide home.

It was all very confused after that -- slick and hot and fast and deep, and Jack felt something break open in his chest in a rush of tangled emotion -- reckless anger and frustration transforming itself into movement, into rhythm, a pounding drive that Daniel was right there to receive, to answer, to brace against. Jack held on hard to Daniel's hips and Daniel pushed back, stroke for urgent stroke. It was overwhelming. Jack came inside him in a blinding blaze of white, and when he came to, they were on their sides, Jack's hands still glued to Daniel's hip bones, one of Daniel's hands gripping his, both of them panting as if they'd been running.

"Fuck," Jack said, his voice barely under control. "Fuck, sorry. That was a lot. Sorry."

He felt Daniel swallow and try to catch his breath. His hand found Jack's and squeezed.

Jack swallowed, too, and said, "Hey, just give me a sec. I do have manners. Don't wanna ... leave you hanging."

Daniel's spine and ribs began to quiver, and it took Jack a minute to realize it was silent laughter. Daniel pulled Jack's hand around. Another rushing shock of pure lust at what he felt, a rush there was no way his body could rise to, despite the unbelievable effect this guy had on him.

Daniel said, still chuckling, "No, that wasn't too hard or too much, and also, no, thank you very much, all fine here."

"But you..."

"You finished the job quite thoroughly," and Daniel was still laughing.

Jack laughed too, which made him even more breathless, and he smushed his cheek against Daniel's shoulder and neck. He remembered almost too late about the rubber, but he was still hard enough to manage to pull out, carefully, everything still where it was supposed to be. Daniel reached for his hip as he eased back, as if it were essential to replace one point of contact with another.

Jack said, "I didn't know-- Before, you touched yourself, when you were ready, at the end." He got up on one elbow and looked around for a trash can.

Daniel turned to him, twisting his spine, exposing curved ribs and one sharp nipple, and he smoothed his hair out of his eyes. His forehead was sweaty; the hair wanted to stick. "You remember that?" He sounded incredulous.

"Yeah, I remember that. I remember everything about the .... encounters we've had."

Daniel offered him an empty tissue box in lieu of a trash can. Then they settled back among the pillows, still keeping Jack's front to Daniel's back.

"Encounters," Daniel said, softly, tasting the word as if to evaluate it, like cheap wine.

Jack's hands couldn't stay quiet. He squeezed Daniel's shoulder, ran his other hand down ribs, around a curve of thigh. "Not a good word? Oh Lord Boo Foo de la Word Guy Deluxe?"

That made Daniel laugh, and the sound sank into Jack, filling him, easing away the last tattered remainders of the anger he'd been fighting, off and on, all week long. Jack noticed how twined together they were -- legs, arms, hands. He lay there, his skin cooling, his neck holding no tension at all any more, with Daniel's skin warm and essential against his own. He sighed, but it was not regret or frustration this time. Just contentment.

Jack said, "This is crazy isn't it?"

"Yeah," Daniel said. "It really is."

For the first time, Jack let himself look unflinchingly at what he'd gotten himself into with this man. The other times they'd had sex, it was for relief, or healing, or escape, or for sheer desperate comfort. Tonight was comfort, too, in a way.... but....

He said to Daniel's nape, "It's too late for me to ask if you're okay with this. I mean, it's still adultery. I know that; I'm not expecting... Anyway. I know it's too late."

Daniel didn't move away, but he went very still. "I'm okay with it. I came to you, last time, remember? And isn't it... Well. It's nothing you haven't done yourself, right?.... Do you want to talk about it?"

Jack thought about that. "Not really."

Daniel was thinking now; Jack could hear the wheels turning. Jack cursed himself. It was supposed to be Daniel who had to talk, Daniel who was the team's voice, the explorer, the negotiator. Why did Jack have to take it into his head to talk, at a time like this? Now he had Daniel all awake and analyzing again, and there would probably be hell to pay as a result. Daniel, as he'd just reminded Jack, knew well the uses of sexual oblivion. And the need for comfort, for any port in a storm. Jack tried to just breathe and keep relaxing into the cocoon of the bed, of the night, but he knew he'd blown it. He could hear Daniel thinking, could easily guess the list of questions Daniel was generating. Jack couldn't have let well enough alone tonight? Dammit.

Jack said, "I can hear you thinking. Wheels spinning, cogs engaging."

Daniel grunted. He tried to make it a chuckle, but Jack could tell it wasn't.

Jack said, "I know. How did I justify it, that first time, back in Chicago? You were the single one, then."

"No, no, that wasn't what I was thinking at all."

"Well, you would have gotten there eventually...." He tightened his arms around Daniel's middle, and Daniel put his arms around Jack's arms. Daniel's hair smelled so good. "I used to do guys sometimes, overseas. Sara didn't know. It's hard to explain why, hard to explain why cheating with another woman would have felt awful but using sex with some of the guys on the team, some of the guys who were gay or who swung both ways... I know it seems totally hypocritical, but there you are."

"I wish I had a neat and tidy explanation like that. Me? I'm just being weak."

Jack went cold inside at the bleakness in Daniel's voice. "Now, see? I knew I shouldn't have come over here tonight. I knew it was unfair to do this to you. This is really pushing it."

Daniel laughed. It was not a warm sound. "Do this to me? What, you mean reduce me to a quivering mass of ecstatic ectoplasm? Make me forget all my failures and fears, for a few minutes? Hold me and make me warm and make me really believe the illusion that I have something to hang on to, that everything will be all right? Because you're so goddamned good at all of that. Yeah, so selfish. So supremely selfish of you."

It was way too late to keep this light, to joke. Jack tried anyway. "Master of alliteration. Next you'll be whispering sweet nothings to me in French."

Daniel shook his head.

Jack pushed his face farther into the tangle of Daniel's hair, pressed his lips to the skin he felt under there. Thinking was definitely overrated. And so was talking about sex in bed. "Crazy fucked up mess," Jack said, holding tighter. "Don't beat yourself up, out loud or to me. Ever. Just don't. Okay?"

Daniel didn't answer, but he didn't let go or get up, either.

Despite the talking, the endorphins and relaxation had done their work. Jack was getting drowsy. "You're sure I can sleep here?" he said, before the embrace of sleep became inexorable.

"Sure," Daniel said, and the good kind of smile, not the teeth-baring kind, was back in his voice. "Just this once. Not a problem."

_"You've been someplace bad, haven't you?.... Urdu is not one of my languages.... I can't call you. Can I."_

Jack pushed his knees more tightly against the backs of Daniel's.

"And for the record, I wanted to call you, in Chicago. I would have wanted you to be able to call me. If things had been different."

"Things. Always with the different things," Daniel said drowsily, and Jack squeezed his eyes shut and hoped they could let it all drop, now.

Jack was almost asleep, and he had been sure Daniel was too -- his breathing even, his muscles gone lax -- when Daniel said, "I'm sorry about Kawalsky. I didn't get to know him very well, but I knew he was a good man."

"He was the best," Jack answered, and Daniel's arms were warm and tight around his, and after that there didn't seem to be any more to ask, or any more to say, while the night lasted.


	5. When It Comes to Tenderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Sha're's funeral, Daniel, against his better judgment, comes to Jack for comfort. Episode tag to "Forever in a Day" and includes information from Daniel's vision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A gift for buefo, for doughnuts! :)

Since you're gone  
Everything's in perfect tense  
I can't help it  
Everything's a mess...

 

_The Cars -- Since You're Gone_

^^^^

The general had his hand on Daniel's elbow, there at the foot of the ramp, and Fraiser was hovering, looking odd and somehow smaller to Jack in her dark blue uniform compared to the familiar angelic white of her lab coat, and so it seemed a little like overkill for him and Carter to hover too. That was guaranteed to piss Daniel off on top of the crappy day he'd already had (on top of the crappiest of all possible weeks), so with an uneasy meeting of the eyes, Jack and Carter left the trio at the bottom of the ramp and sidled toward the door. Jack handed off his Beretta to the armorer and was only a little surprised to see Carter do the same; there was no way he'd go offworld unarmed, even to a funeral on Abydos, but he hadn't realized Carter shared that impulse.

He glanced back. The general and Daniel were still talking, heads bowed together, shutting everyone else out. Fraiser was gone.

After he'd showered the sand dust out of his hair, and changed into civvies, and wandered a bit, a little low-key recon, he found Carter lingering between the infirmary doors and the elevator. The hallway there had a line of sight to the cross-corridor where Daniel's VIP suite was. Jack had just come down from the commissary, by way of Daniel's lab.

When Carter saw him she jerked her head toward the hall that led to the VIP suite. So -- one question answered. Daniel had definitely gone to ground.

Jack nodded and turned back toward the elevators. He could hear Carter's footsteps following. She'd changed to civvies, too, same as him. And was lingering. Same as him.

When the elevator doors had closed behind them and Jack had punched '26,' he said, "Would you mind hanging around here until Teal'c gets back? Intercepting him when he does?"

"You know I wouldn't mind at all, sir."

Carter looked tired and worried, but also like she was holding both conditions at bay. Her mouth was set, but her eyes were calm.

Jack winced at the red numbers clicking slowly down. There had been no query in Carter's voice at all, no questioning subtext. But all the same, he began to explain, "When he gets back from Tuplo's I don't want him to be...." Jack winced again.

"Understood, sir."

"Just if you--"

"No, it's fine; I want to do it."

The elevator doors opened. They walked together toward the locker room.

Carter said, "Are you not staying here, then?"

"No. I'm going on home. I have a feeling they'll release Daniel tonight and I think he'll leave the mountain and I think he'll..."

Jack had to wince again, trailing off, but of course Carter understood. He was a little afraid that she understood too much.

"He'll definitely need some company. Yeah." She sighed, but she didn't seem like she was upset with Jack. Maybe he was more worried than he needed to be about what he was projecting. "Whether he knows it or not."

She touched his shoulder and left him there at the door to their locker room. He watched her go, wishing he could hug her. But Carter knew the score. Carter would feel the hug he wanted to give her, even if he left it undelivered. That was very comforting. He put the thought of Teal'c out of his mind. Carter was on it.

He put on his coat and checked his pockets and picked through his locker. He had everything he needed, but he felt he was missing something. Forgetting something. He shook his head. What he needed was to get the hell out of here. Too much concrete after too many hours of sand.

He risked a brief delay, just a stop at the grocery store, but he hurried, fearful that Daniel would show up at the house and Jack would not be there. He needed some quick supplies: Coffee beans, flavored and plain, and real cream. That weird boxed breakfast thing from the Middle Eastern section that Daniel liked. Some fresh fruit. A few pizzas, a few boxes of frozen potstickers.

He had beer at home already. But he had a feeling he might go straight for the Scotch tonight.

He arrived home. No Daniel; relief. He put away the groceries, trying to decide what to eat for dinner while he waited. But nothing looked like it would taste good. He made sure his cell phone was still on, and put it on the kitchen counter. Usually he turned off the damn thing as soon as he walked in the door.

He poured himself a couple of fingers of Dewar's and made a bag of microwave popcorn, but the bag sat unopened on the coffee table while he channel-surfed.

The untouched popcorn got cold. The bag deflated a little. The Dewar's disappeared slowly. Darkness fell.

The doorbell rang.

Jack didn't check to see who it was before he opened it, he was that sure.

When Daniel came in, smelling of sand and the night, he brushed right past Jack and stomped down the stairs to the middle of the living room, fetching up short like he was surprised to find himself there. He had a coat over his arm. His hair was damp, as if from a shower, but his glasses were dusty.

He turned to Jack as if waiting for directions, his head cocked as if listening.

"Pizza?" Jack said.

Daniel said, "Oh, god," and sat down on the sofa, heavily.

Jack went on into the kitchen. He punched the oven control, set the temperature to 400.

Daniel's voice floated in. "I always forget I won't have to talk. I was all braced against talking and I forgot that you won't make me talk." Jack smiled and peeled cardboard. "It's one of your best things, actually."

Jack didn't answer. Pizzas in the oven, Jack walked back into the living room and handed Daniel a tall glass of ice water. Daniel, sprawled on the sofa as if he had tried to burrow in and gotten stopped halfway, looked at him like he was nuts.

"Ibuprofen? Antihistimine?" Jack inquired.

Daniel shook his head. He wanted to laugh, Jack could tell, but he wasn't letting himself. He made a choked noise instead and tried to cover it by drinking the water.

Jack left him there while the pizza cooked. He rearranged stuff in the freezer, waiting to see what Daniel would do. How he wanted to play it.

Jack felt stretched tight as a guitar string, the pressure of memories of the day, the entire week, making his head buzz. There was a persistent burn in the back of his throat and at the backs of his eyeballs. He ought to drink some water himself, take something for his headache, but he'd fucked up now by drinking all that Scotch. He couldn't take ibuprofen on top of it. He'd drunk the Scotch to unwind a little, but it wasn't really doing the job.

He tossed a package of chicken that he unearthed from the freezer into the trash. He couldn't remember ever buying it, and that was a bad sign. He couldn't smell the pizza yet.

Music began to play, in the living room. Schubert, it sounded like. Daniel didn't really like opera, which was mostly what Jack had in the classical section in there, and the stuff without lyrics was a better choice anyway, given the mood Daniel was presumably in. The music got louder, then louder still. It was the C-major symphony. Jack exhaled, relieved that Daniel had picked something that had no emotional link whatever to what had happened today. If he'd picked the _lieder_? Jack might have had to leave the house.

Well, he wouldn't actually leave, of course, even if Daniel played those. But he would want to.

He figured the best thing he could do would be to stay in the kitchen unless Daniel wandered in, seeking companionship, a refill, or to ask him where the hell the pizza was.

But Daniel never came in. Even when the rich smells of sausage and salty dough filled the kitchen.

When the oven finally dinged and Jack pulled the pizza, he set it on the counter to cool a little and went down into the living room. Daniel was asleep, the empty glass on his knee, his glasses on the coffee table, his head thrown back against the couch cushions.

Jack pursed his lips and went back in the kitchen. He really wasn't in the mood for pizza anyway.

He poured himself another scotch, and loaded up the CD changer without disturbing the symphony Daniel had put on, which was working its way to its magnificent conclusion. Then he sat down, across from Daniel, in the puffy chair, so he could look at him.

Schubert was followed by Beethoven, and then the Beethoven opera, and then the Italians who were Jack's favorites.

Daniel snored a little, but he didn't wake.

About oh-three hundred, Jack twitched awake and shook himself. The room was dark and quiet, but it was the good kind of familiar quiet. No ghosts here. At least, no more than usual. Jack pondered that; how he apparently was quite comfortable with ghosts now. Something he didn't have to think about any more; they were there, inside his head, all the time. Just something he lived with. But Daniel.... well, come to think of it, Daniel had always had ghosts too.

Now he had one more.

Daniel had curled kind of sideways on the sofa, but his neck wasn't at a bad angle, and there was no way Jack was going to wake him. If he could sleep, Jack would let him. Plenty of time for... whatever... in the morning.

Jack got up, joint by creaking joint, and quietly stalked down the hall to what he always thought of as Daniel's room, even though Teal'c crashed here about as much as Daniel did, and pulled the bedspread off the bed and took it into the living room. When he spread it over Daniel, his guest didn't stir. Then Jack went back to his own bedroom, and to bed. He did flip the light on in the hall bath as he went by. Daniel had been over here often enough that he probably wouldn't get lost, even in the dark, but it had been a hell of a day and if Daniel woke from bad dreams and didn't know where he was... well. A light was nice.

Well before dawn, Jack half woke, surfacing from sleep as if from deep water, to find that Daniel had crawled into bed with him. He'd apparently been there a while; Jack had thrown one arm across his chest. Now that Jack was awake, he didn't want to move it.

Jack rested his forehead against the point of Daniel's elbow, vastly relieved that Daniel had come in, had come to bed, was right there, within reaching distance. Jack didn't really want to wake up all the way; he didn't have any interest in pondering the further ramifications of the fact of Daniel's presence in his bed, or in thinking about morning. It was enough that Daniel was next to him, sprawled heavily, touching. Close. Not way out there on the sofa. Gently, so as not to wake Daniel, Jack pulled himself a little closer, flattened his hand against Daniel's ribs, and let the tide of sleep pull him under once again.

^^^^

Jack woke, as was his habit, all at once. He'd slept late -- a full two hours after his usual time. Even on his days off, he always woke up at 0455, even if he glanced at the clock and rolled back over. But not today. He'd slept very very soundly, too. He sighed. He kind of hated being reminded that every single time he'd spent the night with Daniel on world, he always slept this well. Daniel had flopped onto his side in the night and was turned away, his back to Jack. The early light struck silvery highlights into his hair. Jack looked at the back of his head for a while, and finally got up.

He found Daniel's jeans when he tripped over them at the foot of the bed.

He pondered showering; decided it would make too much noise and if Daniel could sleep, he should sleep undisturbed.

So he went into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, dug out a can of frozen orange juice and put it into a pitcher to thaw, and cooked off a bunch of pancakes. He used a box of mix he had in the fridge, though his grandfather would have turned up his nose at such a shortcut. And there was bacon in the freezer too. Still inside its sell-by date. Score.

The smell of coffee didn't rouse Daniel.

Jack ate a little bacon and three pancakes, then put the food in the oven, covered, on low, and went out to run.

When he got back, after doing his customary three easy miles, just up the canyon and back, most of the pancakes were gone, and so was Daniel. He'd left a thank you note propped up against the empty coffee pot, and his dishes in the sink.

His jeans were gone too.

Jack cleaned up the kitchen. It didn't take long. The day was too bright, the silence too echoing. He filled it with the noise of the lawnmower and, later, the weedeater.

When Daniel came back, it was late afternoon.

Jack was on the deck, putting a coat of Thompson's on a new bit of handrailing he'd cut to fit and installed. He'd been meaning for months to replace it; it had rotted through at the top end and was hanging from one nail. He'd taken measurements a long time ago, and had had the lumber in the garage for months. Today was sunny and not cold and he didn't want to be indoors for very long. So it was a convenient time to finish up the project. He had college basketball on the radio, but he wasn't really listening to it. Pretty soon he'd fire up the grill and crack into a beer.

He hadn't registered the car engine stopping, just one noise among many in the regular, sunny-day street traffic, but he heard footsteps crunching and he turned around. Daniel was standing there, hands in his jeans pockets, frowning.

"Hey," Jack said, and turned back to his work. Just a couple more loads on the brush and he'd be done. Another coat tomorrow, and the job would be set. Just took a little planning; a sunny day off, a few uninterrupted hours.

"Hey," Daniel said. And his footsteps went across the deck and the door slid open.

Jack was tapping the lid of the sealant down with the handle of his paintbrush when Daniel came back and put a bottle of beer beside him.

Daniel also had a beer of his own. Jack stood up and looked out over the yard and drank a little, admiring the geometric precision of his edging job, and then he drank a little more, but Daniel, now ensconced in a deck chair, didn't seem to want to say anything, so Jack picked up his tools, and put them away in the garage, and then went for a shower.

When he came back out on the deck, Daniel was nowhere to be seen, but there were briquets burning merrily in the grill and a plastic red-and-white-checked picnic cloth had been spread on the table. Jack bit his bottom lip and turned around and headed for the kitchen.

They made dinner together, and ate it outside in the chilly sunset, Daniel in a borrowed jacket. They talked only of the essentials right before them, until finally they were sitting in deck chairs again, in the dark, in the friendly silence, after-dinner beers in hand.

"I didn't expect to be this numb," Daniel finally said, after a long quiet time. "I expected it to hurt more."

"No rules about it," Jack observed. If the night stayed this clear, they should go up on the roof. The moon set early tonight; the stars would be exceptionally bright.

"I don't know if I've done most of my grieving already and I can't admit that, or if it will kick me in the teeth when I least expect it, or what."

"Maybe both?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Both is likely. You're right."

Talking about this, of course, made Jack think about his grief for Charlie. He knew all its habits and tricks now; it was an old companion. He knew how to let the pain just wash over him, like ocean rollers. It hurt even more if he tried to resist it, and he'd learned that in any case those thoughts and feelings couldn't be resisted for very long when they did come. At least not without permanent warp-age. Better to not even try. The memories would come, and then they would go. Exactly like waves. It was so familiar, the way his pain stalked him. He knew, now, that it would never heal, but after long experience with it, Jack didn't try to make it stop anymore.

He'd learned all that the hard way, of course. And there had been a long period of time, as he'd told Daniel once, when more than anything else he was grateful for his mind's momentary ability to simply forget, to fail to hold a thought.

Daniel said, quite calmly, "I don't think I'll ever get over this."

And Jack knew better than to disagree. But it was wrong, simply wrong, to be sitting here with four feet of cold spring night air between them and having this conversation.

"Come on," Jack said. "I want to show you something."

Daniel obediently put his empty bottle on the deck and got up. He put his hands in his pockets. Jack led him through the house and up the stairs. With a wave, he directed Daniel to the far end of the 'scope, so that they could get the heavy cover off easily, together.

Leaning his butt on the railing, Daniel waited while Jack adjusted the lenses and the viewfinder. Daniel would have to do the fine focus himself, but Jack could get it close. Jupiter was as near as it ever got to Earth, this year, and some of the largest moons were clearly visible.

And when Daniel sat down and put his eye to the viewfinder, Jack stood behind him and put his hands on Daniel's shoulders, stood way too close for politeness, and also let his leg press against Daniel's side.

Just stood there, through Daniel's surprised huff, his momentary tension, his eventual relaxation. His shoulders were warm under Jack's hands. Jack suppressed an urge to knead them, like a cat would, he thought.

"What am I looking at?" Daniel asked after a while, and his voice sounded normal, even conversational.

"Moons of Jupiter," Jack said.

"Ah," Daniel said, and after a while he put a hand over Jack's, there on his shoulder.

"This isn't a pass," Jack said, after another while, when a breeze had come up and it started getting downright cold. He'd counted two shooting stars while Daniel watched the moons slip into shadow. He didn't make any wishes and he didn't point them out.

"I know," Daniel said, and he leaned back and craned at Jack over his shoulder. "We're way past that stage. Don't worry about trying to reassure me. You don't have to explain."

Jack nodded. Daniel let go and stood, and Jack was about to back up and move out of his way, but Daniel was lifting his arms, and Jack wanted the hug just as much as Daniel did.

Warmth; living warmth. Beating hearts. Breath. Jack realized how hard he was squeezing Daniel's ribs and backed off the pressure a little. He swallowed.

"I'm staying tonight, too," Daniel said, against the side of Jack's head. "I guess I should ask first, but I thought it would be all right."

"You don't have to ask," Jack said, not moving.

"And it's not about sex--"

"You don't have to say a thing," Jack interrupted.

And Daniel sighed, and for a minute Jack was afraid he was going to cry, finally, but he didn't. His breath hitched, three or four times, and then his arms got tighter. Jack closed his eyes and just soaked it up. Eventually Daniel let go, and they covered the big telescope again, and went downstairs.

"Thank you for not trying to find Abydos's sun with the telescope. I was afraid that was what you were doing," Daniel said, behind him on the narrow stairs, his voice falling dully in the cramped space.

"I may look like an idiot, but occasionally I do have clue," Jack said.

"You know, I keep telling people that, but they never seem to believe me," Daniel said, thoughtfully, and Jack was so fucking glad the guy could tell a joke that he almost choked on his relief. He should have a snappy comeback, he told himself, but he didn't. He just led the way back downstairs, and on through the routine of locking up, and to bed.

When they were lying together, their feet casually touching, Daniel said, "I argued with myself a lot about coming back over tonight. I didn't want to give you mixed signals, and I honestly think it would be better for me and for you if I didn't need to be here. But I do. And so here I am."

Jack couldn't take it any more. He rolled over and pulled Daniel to him. He hadn't watched him undress, trying to underline the truth that he really wasn't trying to make a pass. He held Daniel close, and this time Daniel relaxed against him without any sign that he might think better of it and draw back. Through the thin cotton of T-shirts and shorts, Daniel's skin was hot and damp.

"I have to find a way, somehow, to deal with the guilt I feel," Daniel whispered. Jack put his hand on the back of Daniel's head. "I have to go on somehow; I have to keep working.... Because--"

He stopped himself; Jack thought it wasn't because he feared Jack was going to interrupt him. Daniel knew him better than that.

"I'll tell you later," Daniel said, and he clutched Jack with both hands.

"Whatever," Jack said, and he put his mouth in Daniel's hair. "Anytime."

Eventually, still locked together, they slept.

^^^^

Jack woke to Daniel sitting up in bed beside him, the morning paper on his knee, a cup of coffee in his hand. But he wasn't reading. He was staring into space. Jack had slept late again; for Daniel, it was the equivalent of the crack of dawn.

"Hey," Jack said, lazily, sleepily, and put a hand on his arm. Daniel looked toward him, but Jack knew he wasn't seeing him, not really. Jack hitched himself up in the bed and pressed a quick kiss to Daniel's mouth, then regretted it immediately. But it seemed like the thing to do in the moment.

He turned away and got out of bed before Daniel could react, and pulled on a mostly clean track suit that was lying on the chair by the door, and went to get himself some coffee. He delayed to make toast -- a piece for him and a piece for Daniel, with a scrape of butter -- and put it on a paper plate.

Daniel was sitting just as Jack had left him. Jack noticed he was still vaguely surprised to see Daniel here, as if last night had been a dream, or had happened to someone else. Jack handed him the plate and bit into his own piece of toast. He sat down on the bed, on top of the covers, facing Daniel.

Daniel ate, and then began to brush at invisible crumbs on the bedspread.

"You're not going to believe me when I tell you this," Daniel said, still not looking at him, "but before she died, Sha're communicated with me through that hand-device Amanuet was using to kill me."

"Beg pardon?" Jack said. He was used to Daniel's non sequiturs, but this took the cake.

Daniel patiently explained it to him; how the message had come to him in the few seconds he'd been on his knees in the tent with the Goa'uld, how the weapon perhaps created some kind of temporal distortion in the areas of the brain that Amanuet was frying, or perhaps Sha're's consciousness had somehow piggy-backed onto Amanuet's intentions in a way that acted like a databurst -- a bunch of information conveyed all at once, and then unfolded and unzipped inside Daniel's mind as if in real time, like implanted memories.

It was an incredible story, because Jack knew what he'd seen when he arrived in the pavilion. It could only have been a few adrenalin-soaked seconds, no more, before Teal'c acted. Otherwise Daniel would have been dead. But Daniel had apparently lived entire worlds in that time -- parallel realities, even. To him, it was that vivid.

"Huh," Jack said.

"I know you don't believe me," Daniel said, drinking coffee. He sounded resigned; not upset. Calm. Too calm.

"I didn't say that," Jack said. "It's just a lot to understand."

"Tell me about it," Daniel said, a little bitterly, and his face seized up. He frowned. To Jack, he looked as some people did when they were about to be sick.

_Oh, shit,_ Jack thought. _Here it comes._

"It's way the hell too much to understand," Daniel said, his voice strained now, and he put his coffee mug down carefully and looked right at Jack. His hands were shaking. "It's fucking surreal. My wife is dead," he said distinctly. "Teal'c shot and killed Sha're to keep the Goa'uld queen who was using her body, from killing me."

The words hung between them, sharp and loud and all too real.

"Sha're is dead," Daniel repeated. "Teal'c killed her." And Jack could see his eyes glitter, silvery and sharp, like sunlight on a stream, and Jack put his coffee somewhere, probably spilled it, he didn't give a shit, and he rolled to his knees and got close to Daniel in one blurry motion and put his arms around Daniel. His shoulders were heaving already.

"Baby," he said, holding on tight. Daniel didn't collapse; he didn't sob, but he rested his forehead on Jack's shoulder for a long time, and when he sat up straight there were tears on his cheeks.

He pushed Jack's hands away, gently, and he leaned back against the headboard.

"Fuck," he said. He took off his glasses and dropped them in his lap and wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"Yeah," Jack said. Jack scooted up to sit beside him, and took his hand.

"What do I do now?" Daniel asked the empty room. Jack just squeezed his hand, and scooched a little closer. He had no answer for that. But he remembered all too well what it felt like to ask that question.

Daniel shook his head, hard, as if trying to dislodge some thoughts that were sticking in places he didn't want them, and got up and went into the master bath. The shower started. Jack got up, too, and put on a bathrobe and started making a real breakfast.

When Daniel emerged into the kitchen, dressed in his own jeans and one of Jack's old sweatshirts (a fact that made Jack's heart squeeze uncomfortably), he sat down at the table without meeting Jack's eyes.

Jack watched him eat. Jack leaned his hips against the counter and drank more coffee. He didn't feel like sitting down. He'd been unable to stop himself from eating his own eggs and toast and bacon while standing at the stove; bachelor's bad habit.

Suddenly Daniel jerked upright in his chair. "I'm pathetic," he said. "Why the fuck am I here?" He dropped his fork on the table and started to shove his chair back. Jack stepped to him and put a hand over his hand.

"Don't," Jack said.

Daniel looked at him, all his pain and guilt and shame right there on his face, and it was turning to anger and self-contempt as Jack watched. Jack knew he had one shot; one shot at keeping Daniel from leaving, from making some kind of dramatic gesture that would taint whatever it was that they had, forever -- probably end it. Jack, damn him for a selfish bastard, didn't want to end it.

"Don't do this," Jack said. "You get to be upset. You get to, to, mourn. Grieve. And you get to do it here, if you want. So don't do this. Don't blow it all up."

Daniel laughed, bitter and brief. He pulled his hand from under Jack's and put both hands in his hair. He got up and started clearing the table. Jack backed off and watched him.

"Hey," Jack called to him. "Here's some free advice. Take a long walk now. Go down in the basement and lift some weights. Punch something. Punch me, even. Blow off some steam."

"Right. Yeah," Daniel said, and Jack knew Daniel was just humoring him. He closed his eyes. So easy, to go over there and grab Daniel by the shoulders and yell at him.

_"You crazy fucked-up idiot; of course you feel terrible! Your wife is dead, goddammit, and you blame yourself. You're angry and helpless and everything sucks. I get that."_

Yeah, he could push Daniel around, yell at him. But what good would that do? None. Exactly none. He most resolutely did not think of Sara. No. He wasn't thinking about Sara right now.

"Look," Jack said, stepping over to where Daniel was loading the dishwasher, putting one careful foot in front of the other, as if he were walking through mines. "You're gonna feel however you feel. But I'm here. I can take it. Okay? Don't push me away just because you feel guilty about what we've been doing."

Daniel stared at him, disbelieving, but he was starting to crumble.

"You loved her. I know that. I never doubted it," Jack said, and when he saw the tears in Daniel's eyes again he took that last step, and put his arms around Daniel again, cursing it all for a fucked up, unjust mess.

"Oh, Jack," Daniel gasped.

"Hey," Jack said, holding him tight.

"She would have been so much better off if she'd never married me. Oh, god," he said, and his arms came up, and he did cry, then. Ugly torn sobs, the way people cried who didn't do it much.

Jack just held on, and waited it out. There was nothing to say. He realized he was biting down hard on his molars, and made himself relax.

^^^^

They did go for a walk, because after that wave of tears, Daniel subsided into kind of a quiet acceptance, which Jack knew wouldn't last but which had to feel better than the sharp-edged pain Jack could tell Daniel had been in before.

Jack dug out that clever backpack that had the water reservoir in it, the one that he used for bicycling, and a boonie for Daniel, and he made Daniel get in the truck, and they drove over and walked the trails at Garden of the Gods. It was a weekday, and it was still pretty early in the morning, so it was very quiet there. Hardly any people. Just a few mountain-bikers.

It helped Daniel, as Jack knew it would. Jack watched him calm down and relax as the hours went by. Watch him take good deep breaths again. And it felt familiar. How many miles had they covered, together, by now, marching, off world? Looking for villages or ruins or temples or cities? In fact was a little strange to not have Carter and Teal'c at their elbows.

When they got to the top of one of the trails, Daniel shaded his eyes and looked out over the foothills. The high and tumbled landscape here was all clear simple colors -- blue, and crisp tan, and deep green, and the rich brick of the sandstone spires. Nothing muddy or mixed. Jack always found it very restful. He stood there, beside Daniel, just breathing the sharp air.

Daniel said, "Sha're told me something else, through the hand-device. Besides all the stuff about needing to forgive Teal'c and move on, besides showing me how my 'bargaining' stage was going to go."

"Yeah?" Jack said, instantly cautious and trying not to show it.

"She told me that I had to find her son. That he was on a planet named 'Kheb.' That I had to stay on the team and get over what had happened to her so that I could keep working with Teal'c and so that we could find her son."

Daniel swallowed hard. Tears were glittering in his eyes again, but he kept looking at the horizon. Then he dropped his hand from shading his brow and looked up at the sky.

Jack put a hand on his back, but Daniel shook his head and folded his arms and so Jack let his hand drop.

"So we find him," Jack said.

Daniel turned to face him; turned his whole body, not just his head. He searched Jack's face. The tears had receded a little, without falling.

"You believe me," Daniel said, a little incredulous. But not completely. More amazed than disbelieving.

"Sure I do," Jack shot back, holding Daniel's gaze like it was life and death, like it was the best, most plausible lie he ever told. He held Daniel's gaze without flinching and without clenching his jaw.

"Okay," Daniel said, and he unfolded his arms and turned away. Without looking, he reached out and grabbed Jack's arm, squeezed it, and then left his hand there. He stood still, poised, thinking, looking into the distance. "Okay," he said again.

When they got back to the house, loose and limber and hardly sweaty at all, Daniel, without saying much, pulled Jack into the shower with him.

Jack was wary but willing. He didn't have the right mood for this, he thought. He didn't know quite what to do. He handled Daniel like he would if Daniel had been physically injured -- zatted or shot or something. He got the soap and a washcloth and washed Daniel, scrubbing at the places he knew would feel great, like the line where his waistband rode, his calves where the regulation socks ended, the tops of his shoulders where the backpack straps always chafed.

Daniel leaned his forearms on the tiles and let him, and then he took a turn with Jack, soaping him gently all over, ignoring Jack's irrepressible hard-on for the moment, even washing his hair.

Daniel didn't dry off very much before he led Jack back to the bed. Jack lay down again, watching Daniel carefully as he rooted in the drawer and found the Astroglide, and then picked up part of a strip of rubbers and showed it to Jack and said, "You tell me if we're going to be needing these any more, because I don't," and Jack's heart started to pound then, and he shook his head. Daniel let the rubbers drop to the floor.

It was so much. Way more than Jack had realized. Daniel's guilt-ridden face in the kitchen earlier made a lot more sense now.

Daniel lay down next to him and carefully pulled Jack to him. Jack ran his hands over Daniel's shoulders, up into his short hair. Jack loved the short haircut. He didn't miss Daniel's long hair at all, although he did think about it nostalgically sometimes.

Daniel held Jack against him and kissed him, carefully, deeply, thoroughly, like he'd never done it before, like he was finding out all about how to do it.

Then he worked his way slowly, gently, relentlessly, down Jack's body, and took his dick into his mouth. Jack gasped, because that was beautiful in and of itself, but Daniel had brought the lube with him as he worked his way down, and he was already pressing two fingers in gentle inviting circles against Jack's hole. Jack spread his legs and clutched and the sheets and groaned as Daniel took him down his throat and pushed deep inside at the same time, in the same movement, one long intense slide.

It was like getting the deepest, most persistent itch scratched. It was drinking after a long thirst.

"Daniel," Jack groaned, and clutched at him. Daniel worked him over, sucking and deep-throating him, playing with his insides, sparking waves of pleasure from the gland with his fingertips. He was methodically driving Jack crazy.

Just when Jack was about to let go and come, Daniel backed off his prostate, and pulled his mouth, still so tight and hot, up and off. Jack gasped again. His cock felt swollen and huge. His ass was throbbing around Daniel's fingers. Daniel leaned up and looked him in the eye.

"Can you do this on your back?" he asked. "We've never tried it that way."

"'S good," Jack said. "Go for it."

A corner of Daniel's mouth twitched, and Daniel kept those fingers in him, kneeling up and getting the lube opened again one-handed, slicking himself with one quick twist while Jack, panting, watched him.

When Daniel knelt between Jack's legs, Jack held on to Daniel's arms, and Daniel only broke their gaze for as long as it took to get the tip of his dick seated.

Jack lifted his calves to rest around Daniel's hips; there wasn't a lot of purchase there, but he was loose and ready after their long walk, his muscles ready for the exertion. He could do this all afternoon.

The way Daniel was looking at him, so intense, with so much want, so much need. Jack pushed with his heels, and Daniel slid all the way in, with a momentary crease in his forehead, but he never looked away.

His strokes were urgent, and Jack felt nailed, by his cock and by those laser-blue eyes, and Daniel fucked him, smoothly and deeply and beautifully. Jack thought his heart might break. Finally, finally at the end, Daniel closed his eyes and half-collapsed onto Jack, groaning, and then reached between them to finish Jack off, Jack's legs still locked around his middle. It didn't take much; just a few twisting short strokes around the head of Jack's dick, and he shot, as if Daniel was pulling it out of him, wrenching him, turning him inside out. His vision went white.

They lay there, panting and sated. Jack held on tight as Daniel's grip loosened. He closed his eyes when Daniel got up and went for a towel to clean him up.

When Daniel had gotten rid of the towel and was climbing back in bed, Jack pulled him close, and made Daniel lie on his back, and Jack ran a hand along his front, and kissed him a few times, reflectively, pulling back after each kiss to get a good look at whatever might be in Daniel's eyes now.

He saw no peace, roughly the usual amount of distraction, and a kind of resolve that looked worrisomely like resignation.

Daniel kissed him back, though, and petted him and stroked him and finally made himself comfortable against Jack's back.

Jack wasn't sleepy at all, despite the intensity of his orgasm. It was early afternoon, and he'd finally caught up on his sleep, the last few nights.

He traced Daniel's fingers and knuckles with his own, and closed his eyes to soak up the feeling of Daniel's naked body pressed against his back. His ass was sore in the good way, the memorable way. It had been a while. And he could count on one hand the times he'd done that bareback; giving or receiving. He knew it was significant. They should have been using rubbers for blowjobs too, all along, but at least they had done the fucking with some sense of propriety. He'd never told Daniel that since that first night after he'd made Daniel come back here to Earth, ever since then, except for Kynthia there had been no one else. He'd never asked Daniel if Daniel was sleeping around or not. It hadn't been any of his business. But he knew what Daniel meant by putting away the rubbers, and yet he had no intention of talking about it today. He sighed and snuggled his hips closer against Daniel's groin.

Daniel grunted and pulled him tighter with the hand that was splayed against Jack's belly.

They lay there for a while. Jack realized he was thirsty, but he didn't want to get up.

Daniel said, "She wouldn't have liked it; that I was cheating on her with you."

A thrill of alert went down Jack's spine, but he managed not to move or to show it.

"I figured," he said. He waited. It took awhile for Daniel to say more.

"You said you never told Sara, about the men. The men overseas. Or me, in Chicago, either, I guess."

"No. I never did."

"You never really explained it to me either; how that worked for you. Why you did it, really."

"That's because there was never a good explanation at all. Zip. Nada." Daniel chuckled a little, at that, or maybe at the memory of that conversation. "Welcome to my world," Jack said.

Daniel laughed harder; in fact his laugh got kind of hysterical, and he shook, and laughed, nearly silently, against Jack's back, and Jack just held on to his arms until the waves ebbed. Hard to tell sometimes... if it was laughing or crying, but whatever Daniel was doing -- celebrating or mourning, raging or rejoicing -- he was choosing to do it here. And that was good enough for Jack. Now, and always.


	6. What Do You Say After You Say Hello?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after the events of "Past and Present."

Jack had decided it must be a relationship. He didn't know what else to call it.

This was how it had worked before, for Jack: Back when Jack was married, anything that happened between two lonely desperate guys on an overseas mission was put into the category of forgivable sin, as long as it was never talked about, never admitted, and most importantly, as long as it never messed with the guys' heads once they were home.

That kind of ... well, Daniel would probably call it compartmentalization, or even denial ... had worked for Jack for a long time.

Or so he still told himself.

However. It was the worst kind of selfishness to assume that Daniel, while married, had made excuses for his encounters with Jack in the exact same way Jack had done in years past. Jack had to admit he'd been assuming a lot about Daniel's motivations, all this time that he and Daniel had been getting together. All this time while Daniel had still had hope, was still searching for Sha're, awaiting the day she would be free and returned to him. Those days when Daniel still had one foot in the future.

Oh, sure, Jack knew Daniel had to have been rationalizing their "thing" somehow, ever since Chulak. Because it was so happening. They fucked, they kissed, they touched. They didn’t talk much.

But still. Despite all the hedges Jack put around it, for him, it had the feeling of some kind of long-term thing. A thing most resembling ... a relationship. So maybe it had for Daniel, too?

And now, Sha're was dead.

Until now, her unseen presence had set some pretty serious limits in Jack's head. He had assumed that Daniel's marriage had a big impact on what they were doing -- that was a foregone conclusion to Jack. It seemed to fit in to the way things were in the old days, when he'd always put those same limits on himself because of Sara. Sara would come first, no matter what.

Comparing himself, his motivations, his denial, to Daniel's, went places Jack didn't want to go in his mind anymore. He didn't want to think about his own life before the gate. His life when he was still married. Like Daniel had been married. When Jack had still had a family.

Usually it was at this point in his ruminations that Jack found a distraction. Something involving aliens or big honking space guns.

In the sad, careful days after Sha're was buried, Jack stuck very close to Daniel, and he was so very glad to see that Carter did too.

Teal'c, of course, kept a respectful distance. He had to. Jack spent more time with Teal'c, as well, in those first days. He wanted to somehow show Teal'c that he understood. That he would keep him on the team, even after this.

And from what Daniel had told Jack about Daniel's new private assignment, his quest to find Sha're's son, eventually Daniel would probably come around about Teal'c. Because Daniel said he had been given very clear marching orders from the person whose opinion mattered most.

One night, after Jack had invited Teal'c over for a movie marathon and more pizza than was probably wise, and was taking him back to the mountain, Teal'c got out of Jack's truck at the second checkpoint and said, "I do not require coddling, O'Neill."

"I know," Jack said, a little stung. He didn't want Teal'c to critique him, or even to comment at all, really. Jack was, after all trying to be nice. Trying to be sensitive to his team's needs, for God's sake.

"Whatever Daniel Jackson requires from me, I will do," Teal'c said, leaning down to meet Jack's eyes as he held the passenger door open.

"I know," Jack repeated, now unable to keep his irritation out of his voice.

Teal'c nodded, as if satisfied, and closed the truck door firmly and yet without the slightest hint of temper.

Jack blew out a breath, and with Apophis' First Prime as his example, calmly and sedately steered the truck back out of the complex without laying down any rubber at all.

So there was a fragile peace.

Sha're was gone. Daniel was quiet. Jack was... waiting. He tried not to be waiting for acknowledgement of the relationship.

Until that fucking bitch -- no. Bitch didn't even begin to cover it. There was no curse word Jack knew in English, Farsi, Arabic, Spanish, German or Irish Gaelic to cover the deep evil that was Kera, AKA Linnaea.

Until her. And Daniel's utterly ridiculous behavior around her.

After that mission, Jack waved off Carter with some difficulty, because she was just as concerned about Daniel as Jack was, albeit for different reasons. He called Carter off, and Jack himself went over to Daniel's place, with a pizza and a bottle of California cabernet, and Jack waited until they were sitting and eating before he said, as mildly as he knew how, "What the fuck was that all about?"

Daniel got up and went into the bedroom and closed the door and didn't come out. The pizza got cold, and the wine bottle got empty, and Jack silently cursed himself six ways from Sunday.

Finally he got up and left.

He didn't try to talk about it again.

So much for the idea of a relationship. So much for Daniel crying in his arms, after Sha're's funeral. And as for Daniel's declaration about how they wouldn't need rubbers any more? Jack didn't know and honestly didn't want to know if Daniel had fucked Linnaea on base, in her VIP suite. But that afternoon was the point at which he realized that he had no idea what it was all about, this thing he thought they were doing. Or weren't doing now, maybe.

And Daniel was not going to tell him.

Two weeks after Kera, Daniel showed up in the doorway of Jack's closet of an office, about 1800. Jack still had his original office, the one he'd had since his first week under Hammond's command, one of the ridiculously small ones on 27, just around the corner from the big conference room that overlooked the gate. He'd never bothered to move, even when most of the other team leaders got better, bigger space as the upper levels were built out.

That afternoon, Jack looked up from his paperwork, feeling the disturbance in the air, and there was Daniel, shoulder against the door jamb, eyes unreadable.

Jack raised his eyebrows and put down his pen.

"Dinner?" Daniel said.

That was an invitation to something. Maybe just dinner. But Jack wasn't going to say no.

Daniel suggested a Mexican place in Colorado City; a little touristy for Jack, but bustling and cheerful, and as Daniel seemed to know several of the staff, who kept coming up to greet him, they spoke in Spanish for most of the evening. Jack was going with the flow, letting things stay trivial and friendly, enjoying a smiling and apparently worry-free Daniel, even if that was just the face Daniel was showing to a bunch of strangers. Until the check was paid, the beer was drunk, and Daniel followed him to the truck instead of going to his own car. Hands in his pockets, looking at the ground, Daniel said, "Do you want me to follow you, or leave my car here and ride in the truck?"

Jack was so surprised that he didn't say anything at first, and Daniel frowned and added, "I know it's out of your way to bring me back here, but if you don't want my car at your place..."

"No, sure, you can follow me. It's fine," Jack said, hurriedly, and Daniel unknotted his brow and nodded and turned. Jack stood there a minute, and then got in the truck quickly and headed on home, deliberately focusing on the road, deliberately not watching for Daniel's Honda in the rearview, getting home quickly and efficiently so he could change the sheets. When he heard the front door quietly open and close, he paused, standing by the laundry chute, the dirty sheets bundled in his arms.

When he came back up the hall, heart pounding, there was Daniel. After letting himself in, he had poured himself a glass of wine and was now standing in front of the empty fireplace. He turned and looked at Jack. Jack stood still on the top step to the living room, and their gazes locked. Daniel looked controlled, neutral, and somehow ... empty. When Daniel didn't say anything, Jack didn't either, and he figured he'd better not get left behind if it was a drinking sort of night, and so he went and got himself a Heineken out of the fridge.

He joined Daniel at the fireplace and gently nudged him with an elbow. "News flash: There's no fire burning tonight. If you hadn't noticed."

Daniel glanced at him and smiled. He took himself to the sofa, took off his glasses and sat, moving as if he were tired, Jack realized.

"I'm imposing," Daniel said. "I probably shouldn't be here at all, but..." And he raised his hand and rubbed his eyes.

Jack tried not to think about how Daniel was barely looking at him. "We covered that weeks ago," he said, still standing by the hearth. "Quit apologizing."

Daniel looked up at him and shook his head. "You don't get it, do you?"

Jack was conscious of deliberately putting a rein on his temper. He took a deep breath and counted to four twice before he let himself meet Daniel's eyes. "What? What don't I get? How numb you can be for a long time after a hit like you took? Or is it the guilt that I don't understand -- guilt over what you did or didn't do, all coming back on you like a piano falling on your head after you stuffed it for so long? Or maybe it's the crazy feeling of self-pity for your own suffering on top of the guilt that I don't understand? Yeah, that one. That's a bad one there -- that 'Why me?' mixed up with 'I'm a total heel.' That's the one that drives you to the hard liquor."

Daniel looked shocked. Completely speechless. Suddenly becoming aware that he was holding his glass in midair, he put it on the coffee table.

Jack went on, "Yeah, maybe it's all that stuff I don't get. Sure. Maybe you'll have to explain it to me. Or hell, just go on not explaining it. That's working for you so far."

Jack turned away. Maybe there was a fire burning in here after all. He had said way more than he wanted to. More than he intended to. He made himself shut his trap and spent some time examining the details of one of the frames on the mantel. His Purple Heart was looking a little tarnished. Need to fix that. He waited. And waited.

"I'm sorry," Daniel said, and the springs creaked on the sofa as he got up. Jack held his breath. Daniel's hand fell on his shoulder. "I get... I forget, sometimes, that I'm not the only person in the universe with problems."

Jack turned, eyes closed, and swept Daniel into his arms. Maybe he shouldn't, maybe it was a mistake now, more than a mistake, even some species of disaster, but he couldn't not. "Oh yes. It's all about you," he said, trying for funny.

Daniel held him tight, and Daniel rested his head against Jack's head, and then he was pressing his lips to Jack's neck. Jack exhaled as the warmth bloomed in his skin where Daniel's mouth touched it, spreading out and out and engulfing him. He started to get hard. They stood there like that for a long time, Jack waiting, Daniel doing.... something. Whatever it was that Daniel did when he got quiet like that. After Kera, Jack felt he was farther away than ever from understanding it.

Finally Daniel lifted his mouth and whispered in Jack's ear. "I'm imposing. But if you let me keep imposing, I'm not going to stop. Even though I should."

Jack turned his head and grabbed the side of Daniel's, just like he had in the gateroom once, the third time back, now, that he'd figured Daniel was permanently dead. That time he'd once again been proved wrong. But who was counting? Not Jack. Not now. "Can we stop talking about this now? Because talking sucks."

Daniel sighed, in his turn, and closed his eyes. "I'm not making the bad joke that would come at this point, okay? I'm not."

"Small mercies," Jack said, and leaned in and kissed him back.

And Daniel received his kiss and met it, called it, like raising a poker stake. Kissed Jack eagerly, almost desperately. Daniel held him tight in a moving grip, letting his hands roam and press, and he pressed his whole body against Jack urgently, as if he'd forgotten what he felt like, forgotten who he was making love to and needed to remind himself at the level of skin and muscle. Like he need more than a visual to believe this was real.

The kissing and the full-body hugging went on for a while -- the kissing deep and intense, teasing and shallow, lots of tongue, lots of exploring. Finally Jack got tired of standing there with his zipper creasing his hardon. Stepping back, eyes closed, he tugged at Daniel's wrist. Daniel leaned toward him, following Jack's mouth with his own when Jack moved away, but then he opened his eyes and said, "Oh," and he let Jack pull him up the stairs and down the hall and back into the dark.

Jack led him to the bed in the master suite, and started on his shirt buttons. Daniel stood there, hands on Jack's shoulders, and seemed to enjoy Jack undressing him. At least he was smiling a little, and not rushing it. After Jack coaxed Daniel into stepping out of his socks and slacks, Jack spent a couple of minutes saying hello to Daniel's cock with his fingers. Daniel's dick was warm and a little damp; familiar and strange. The touching made Daniel gasp and rock, losing his balance. The Jack got impatient with just using his hand, and he sank carefully to his knees and put his mouth to work. Daniel gasped louder, and he rested his hands on Jack's shoulders, which made him lean over, and then he put his hands on Jack's head and spread his feet a little and tried to balance, groaning.

Jack had to admit it was gratifying, making Daniel respond like that. And then he pretty much stopped thinking, fully occupied by the feel of Daniel's dick filling his mouth, the warmth and the fullness and the tart, sharp taste.

He knelt there, carefully, feeling Daniel's hands on his head, until a distant chime in the back of his head told him, 'Get up before your knees insist.'

Daniel's eyes were closed. Jack pushed him a little on the arm, and his eyes fluttered open and he straightened and pulled off his shirt.

Jack stripped quickly, following him down to the mattress, and there was more urgent kissing, and the slide of warm skin as they lay beside each other, pressed tight. Daniel kept groaning, kept his eyes closed, and Jack felt the energy change. Earlier tonight he'd been the one to push them here. Now Daniel was in control, wanting that. Jack went with it. Daniel rolled them so that he was on top, rubbing his dick against the crease in Jack's hip, leaning on one elbow to get more leverage, and never stopping the deep, urgent kissing. Jack felt drowned. In the good way, in the "make all your problems go away" way.

"God," Daniel said, against his mouth, and then he braced himself on Jack's shoulders and looked at him, long and hard, an assessing look. Jack frowned a little, not understanding what he was seeing, but then Daniel leaned for the bedside drawer and Jack closed his eyes again, stroking one hand down Daniel's side, happy for what was coming next. He felt Daniel moving, leaning back, and when he opened his eyes again he was treated to the sight of Daniel, kneeling, slicking up his cock. A warm push of new arousal flooded Jack, and he reached again for Daniel as Daniel reached for him.

"Like this," Jack said, bending his knee, and Daniel raised his eyebrows but went along. "And just do it -- but take it slow. No fingers. Just like this."

That got him an even more questioning look, but Daniel left Jack to arrange his legs while he leaned on one arm and aimed with the other.

Oh yeah -- the slow delicious burn, the initial push, as the head breached him, melting into heat that spread from his ass through his body and up his arms and legs. Jack arched into it, sweat breaking out behind his knees, and he groaned, turning his head to one side.

When he was seated, Daniel let go of himself, and Jack opened his eyes at the touch of Daniel's fingers on his lips. The touch firmed and settled, becoming not a caress but a request to not talk. That made Jack frown again. Daniel? Not wanting an answer to whatever he was about to say? Daniel's eyes were fierce, though his touches were still gentle.

"I didn't fuck her, Jack. I know you were brooding about that. But I didn't."

The last word was more of a gasp as Daniel slowly, slowly pushed halfway in. Jack squeezed down on him, encouraging, and Daniel gasped again, and moaned. He'd delivered his message, and Jack felt... it was hard to know what he felt in his heart, when his body was this relieved, this grasping for whatever Daniel was offering tonight. And Daniel was offering a lot. He was taking control again, helping now, folding Jack's good knee, bringing the other calf up to rest on his shoulder, breathing hard. He had the leverage and the balanced figured out, and he had to feel how Jack was opening for him, slow and tight and easy.

"Jack," Daniel breathed, and Jack clutched his shoulder, entirely without words. Nothing to say, now. No more arguing. No one else in the bed with them now. Not now. Not ever again, please God.

Daniel fucked him, long and slow, until neither of them could hold on any more, and Daniel collapsed into the puddle of come on Jack's stomach, clumsily easing Jack's leg aside just in time. Jack's arms went loosely around him, and he groped with one hand and cupped the back of Daniel's head. Daniel grunted at that, a pleased sound, and nuzzled him. They were both sweaty and wrecked and it was so so good to feel the tightness gone from Daniel's shoulders and from his back. Jack let his heart slow, his breathing deepen, feeling the same things happen in Daniel's body; not in synch, but almost. It was so, so good -- too good -- to have Daniel in his bed again. He closed his eyes tighter, and tightened his arms, making Daniel huff.

He shouldn't want this so much. And he certainly couldn't come to need it.

He tried to stop thinking; to simply soak in Daniel's physical presence. Luckily that wasn't hard. He felt Daniel fall asleep. He didn't remember following him down into that warm dark.

When he woke up in the morning, he was in bed alone. But Daniel had made coffee before he left, and set out Jack's cup and a spoon and the sugar container. Seeing that, Jack decided, in light of everything that had been going on, in light of all the talking and the weird not-talking, that this one qualified for the "win" column. These days, he'd take what he could get.


	7. Downhill From Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in Season 3.

The moons on Abydos were so bright that Jack never turned on his flashlight as he and Daniel picked their way home, through the sparse, cheerful crowd in the main square and down a short side lane. Khasuf had put them up in one of his guest houses for visiting dignitaries, near the governor's hall where the banquet had been held tonight.

Skaara's return home from his exile of Goa'uld possession was big news around here. Daniel and he were fitting in their debriefing sessions between presentations and ceremonies and rituals and long-winded meals. More representatives from outlying settlements and tribal branches were coming in every day as the news spread. Skaara seemed to be holding up just fine. The Tollan medical team that had brought him to the planet had left after a day.

Jack wasn't sure how long he and Daniel would stay, but they hadn't come close to exhausting Skaara's intel about current alliances and rivalries among the Goa'uld, to say nothing of the tactical and planetary information. Transcribing a bunch of gate addresses Skaara knew via Klorel had taken Daniel most of a morning. 

Jack switched on his flashlight as they ducked into the front hallway of their temporary home, an ancient mud-brick building near the city wall. Daniel paused by the cold torch in its sconce, and Jack watched, easily reading his thoughts. Daniel touched his breast pocket where the matches were, considered lighting it, and decided with a dip of his head that it was too much trouble under the circumstances. It was late.

They could hear voices, from the floor above, and from around the corner, drifting on the quiet air. Someone was singing somewhere. A dog barked. Jack guessed it was a dog. Sounded like one. Jack followed Daniel into their doorway on the left, and clicked off his light when Daniel turned on the hanging lantern they'd brought from Earth. It swayed a little under his touch, its steady, battery-powered light sending shadows into the corners. The flicker of torchlight would be more romantic, but this was more like home. 

Daniel put down his bag with his notes and his laptop and sat crosslegged, sinking gracefully onto the thick rugs as if he did it every day, as if he didn't miss having a chair, didn't even notice that there wasn't one in the room.

Jack took off his tac vest, and leaned a shoulder against the wall to balance while he unlaced his boots. The room was high ceilinged, their lantern swinging from a wire in the center. There were small windows angled to catch the prevailing breeze, dark now. Cool in the daytime and warm at night, the place offered protection without being stifling. Khasuf's ancestors had known their stuff as far as making a desert town as livable as possible.

Daniel had explained the town's history to him on their first morning, while they were on their way to one of their first sessions with Skaara. Jack knew some of the design principles already -- he had plenty of experience with desert life, after all -- but it was nice to hear Daniel in enthusiastic lecture mode, and Jack had never gotten around to making a study of Abydos history. There had certainly been no time for that on his -- their -- first visit. Of course Daniel had had plenty of time since. 

Now, Daniel had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his eyes, uncharacteristically silent.

Jack sighed in relief at getting out of his boots, and wiggled his toes. He cracked open one of the water bottles they'd brought, drank, and knelt to offer it to Daniel. Mostly it was an excuse to meet his eyes.

"Thanks," Daniel said. He looked at the bottle for a minute, as if trying to remember what it was for.

Jack sat back on his butt on the carpets and linked his arms around his knees. "It's pretty weird for you, this visit."

"You could say that," Daniel said, dry as dust, and drank. "It's nice to see the changes for the better since I lived here. And Khasuf seems to have landed on his feet, despite losing both his children." After that first quick glance, he wasn't meeting Jack's eyes. "He managed to make some local alliances a couple of years ago that kept him in power, despite having no heirs, and his connection with us didn't hurt, either, after he started trading through the gate. Regaining Skaara will help him even more."

Jack knew perfectly well why Daniel didn't seem happier about all this. And why his dry recitation of dynastic and political facts was devoid of emotion. Devoid of the sense of connection they all had. Skaara had been like family to Jack, once upon a time. The reunion with him on Tollana had been joyous, but also bitter. For both of them. And Jack knew how much Daniel respected Khasuf, and how he felt that what had happened to Sha're had poisoned that forever. Daniel was feeling a lot that he wasn't showing. 

"I'm sorry," Jack said.

Daniel sighed, and looked at Jack, finally holding his gaze. He looked tired. "I know. I'd say 'Me, too,' but that seems so ... petty. Small. Inadequate." He got up then, without even using his hands to push off the floor, and set the water bottle on one of their supply crates. "There's no point in talking about it."

Jack stood up, too. Daniel had his back to him, and Jack closed the distance and put a hand on Daniel's shoulder. He hadn't done that, last night or the night before. That was their habit -- less than a rule, and unspoken, but it had held, so far. Off world was not for intimate touching, and not for sex. But Abydos was different. Here, Jack was gripped by Daniel's memories as well as his own. An internal sense of pressure had been building with every hour they spent on this planet where Daniel had been happy once. 

When Daniel turned around at his touch, Jack said, "C'm'ere," and when Daniel's expression softened, he pulled him in. Daniel's arms came around him in turn, and Jack close his eyes with relief and put his face against Daniel's neck. So Daniel would let him break their rule. Habit. Whatever. Daniel needed a hug as much as Jack did. Though he was as loathe as Jack to admit that out loud. Daniel smelled of the food they'd eaten, the sharp sweet smoke of the fire, and his own clean sweat. He'd kept his SGC uniform this time, instead of changing into robes on arrival, even though Khasuf had sent a set for Daniel along with the welcome-gifts of food and drink. Jack wasn't sure what, if anything, to read into Daniel's decision to keep his Earthside dress. When the Earth delegation had come for the funeral, before, Daniel had worn the robes. 

Reassured by Daniel's hug, Jack turned his head and pressed a kiss to Daniel's jaw. He wasn't really trying to start anything, although he couldn't think of a less risky situation in which to let his guard down off world (especially since Lya had subtly hinted before they left Tollana that the Nox were going to be keeping watch on Abydos from orbit, just to make sure Skaara got settled in without interference from Zipacna's faction.). But touching wasn't always about sex. And it was becoming a reflex -- to communicate with Daniel by touch, by these little affectionate things that he hadn't done with anybody since Sara. Little gestures, little touches that were only slightly about lust and very much about ... something else. 

Not that he wasn't deeply into the sex; no matter how much shit was hitting the fan around them, he never stopped wanting Daniel -- his intense attraction for the guy had seemed to get only stronger as the years went by. But along the way, it had become so much more than stress relief or buddy fucking for Jack. It should have been simple. But it was complicated. Complicated enough to include this kind of kissing and touching. More like an old married couple than a couple of tough lonely guys on a mission, Jack thought. 

Daniel squeezed his shoulder and kissed him back, on the mouth, quickly but not perfunctorily. Maybe he was a little distracted. Which made sense.

Daniel turned away to unfasten his own tac vest and get ready for sleep. They weren't setting watch. Jack turned the hanging lantern to low and made sure his flashlight was by his boots, ready to hand. He automatically checked his sidearm and left it at the open end of his sleeping bag. He pulled off his BDU pants and rolled them up to use as a pillow. It was comfortable now in their room, but by morning it would be chilly and they'd both be glad of their Air Force-issue bags. 

He'd woken up this morning to find Daniel had moved in his sleep and was pressed against Jack's back, both of them still in their separate bags. They'd spread the bedding out side by side the first night, without even talking about it, right next to each other, facing the door. Much closer together than Jack would have done if it were him and Carter, or him and Teal'c, on this mission.

Again he was struck by the odd familiarity, the inescapable comfort, of his closeness to Daniel. Feeling his muscular length, molded against Jack's back, this morning, had been a wonderful thing to wake up to. Simply sleeping together, even in separate bags, never got old. 

He lay down on his back and watched Daniel digging for something in his knapsack, pretty much meaningless fussing, as far as Jack could see. Counting pens. Flipping through his paper journal. Checking the battery on the laptop. Like a dog circling three times before lying down.

When Daniel finally stripped to his underwear and stretched out beside him, he reached out and put a casual hand on Daniel's arm. 

Daniel stirred and turned to his side, dislodging Jack's hand, making it slide up to his shoulder, and sighed. Jack could see the lantern light reflected in his eyes.

Daniel said, "I'm happy for him. I really am. I just wish..."

There was nothing to say to that; the only thing Jack could do was gather him close again, and they fell asleep like that, twined together, breath mingling, as the sounds of the town died away and the deep silence of the desert enfolded them all. 

^^^^

The sad, unsettled, glass-half-empty feeling didn't go away, even after the Abydos debrief was over and they had seen Skaara settled in to his life again. It was success. But without the feeling of victory that that usually carried for Jack. 

Jack tried to combat the void with humor, detachment, even madcap one-liners, especially while they were dealing with the clusterfuck that was Urgo, but he could feel it, in his heart, on his skin. A lack. An absence. A dead zone. 

Daniel had tightened his belt and gone on after Sha're's death, but he was not himself. Hadn't been himself since then. Kera had been a symptom of that, but there was more to it. Sure, he was making an effort, but the effort was telling on him, gradually leeching him away. He was shedding weight. He had new crow's feet. His smiles were forced and so were his silences.

Jack was losing him. He was slipping away even though he was right fucking there.

And Jack wasn't even sure he could explain what losing Daniel meant, because he'd barely had him. Oh, sure, there was the sex; that was happening; they seemed to be each other's haven of last resort. But this kind of secret, fit-it-in-the-cracks-between-desperate-missions thing they had..... 

And then, Jack was trapped on Edora when the gate was buried by the asteroid strike. 

^^^^

Time stood still.

It was a primitive society. Things moved slowly. This year was much the same as last. The seasons turned, the natural order of things ruled. The old died. The young lived, and loved as if for the first time. Babies were born. Life ... happened.

Someone wanted him. Someone ... needed him.

On Edora, it was easy to live in the moment.

Too easy.

^^^^

It seemed he'd barely gotten his feet back on Earth, gotten a decent haircut, gotten rid of the lice, gotten used to hot water again, when he was yanked away by Thor and thrown into the little grey guy's crazy op against Maybourne's rogues. Hammond's briefing made it seem reasonable, and then, there Jack was. In the deep end. 

He was someone else for a while. He returned to his black ops roots. He was out of synch with the team. He lied to them, and found lying easy. Too easy.

If he hadn't just spent three months in a medieval time warp, could he have pulled off the lies? Would Daniel have fallen for it, without the distance Edora had made between them?

Had Daniel actually fallen for it at all? Or had he guessed, but played along? 

Jack honestly wasn't sure. 

^^^^ 

Things took a true turn for the worse when Apophis destroyed Chulak. Jack's Least Favorite Goa'uld Ever had come roaring back from his supposed defeat and had decided to rip an entire planet apart, searching for the harcesis child. Jack felt bad that Bra'tac's beloved apprentice had been part of the collateral damage. 

Then the combined knowledge base of Bra'tac and Daniel resulted in Kheb suddenly becoming not just a dubious message from Sha're, but a real destination. 

As they waited at the foot of the ramp for the gate to get their second lock on Kheb, now that the MALP had shown they had a viable destination, Jack surreptitiously watched Daniel. He looked extremely serious. More serious than usual. 

It had taken guts for him to reveal Sha're's message to the team and to Hammond. Jack had never really believed Daniel's interpretation of what he saw as Sha're's dying message, but Jack had tried his best to make Daniel think he had. And now perhaps they were actually going to prove Daniel right. Jack would be extremely happy to be wrong, for once, if it vindicated Daniel and gave him some peace. 

Daniel felt Jack looking at him and met his eyes. He raised his eyebrows, and his expression changed subtly, conveying a feeling of "Yeah, I know it's another fine mess, Stan."

Jack smiled in spite of himself. 

"Chevron seven; locked," Walter said, and they were off to see the wizard.

^^^^

Wizard, actually, was kind of what they did in fact get to see.

Daniel had been right. About everything. About the reality of Kheb, about the existence of the child, about the powerful nature of the glowing aliens who had decided to protect the baby from the Goa'uld.

But in the debriefing afterward, Daniel seemed anything but vindicated. He seemed deflated, even though he stressed to Hammond that he truly believed that leaving the baby with the aliens was the right thing to do and that he had no regrets.

Jack checked in on him a couple of times during the day, after they got back from the mission, and he was surrounded by reference books and printouts and seemed riveted to his computer screen. When Jack drifted behind him to catch a glimpse, he was searching for anything related to legends of Mother Nature and divine aspects of storm and fire gods and goddesses around the world. 

Later, Jack checked on him again, right before he left the mountain for the weekend, and Daniel had switched back to research on Kheb, Osiris and Set according to the ancient Egyptians. 

"You gonna be at it all weekend?" Jack said, leaning his fist on Daniel's desk.

"Probably," Daniel said, his eyes on the monitor.

Jack tapped his knuckles on the desk a couple of times and started backing toward the door. "Well, if you get hungry, come on by. You've gotta eat sometime, after all, and the playoffs have started."

"Playoffs? What playoffs?"

"Baseball, Daniel. You've heard of baseball?"

"I think you may have mentioned it, yes. Diamonds. Innings. Short stops."

Jack shook his head and left. He was glad that Daniel was alert enough to his surroundings to kid around. Small mercies. 

Daniel didn't show up that night. And Saturday went by without a call from him. Saturday about five, Jack resorted to spying. He didn't have to go through the SGC switchboard. He knew this number by heart. 

"Carter."

"Hey, it's me."

"Sir?"

"Having one of your fun working weekends again?"

"Well, yes, actually. There were a couple of items that Area 51 couldn't make heads or tails of from your sting of Maybourne's group, and I actually have been requested to take a crack at them."

"Is that so?"

"One of them appears to have exciting potential as a new kind of scanner. It doesn't seem to work on the principals of either an MRI or a CAT scan and we're trying to--"

"Carter."

"Sorry, sir. That wasn't why you called at all, was it."

"No, actually. Here's the thing. I'm worried about Daniel after that last mission. Is he still down there?"

"Hang on a sec.... Yeah, he's logged in now. And his computer's showing active."

"That guy. The two of you don't know the meaning of 'take a break.' "

"You keep saying that! But maybe our idea of a break involves research. And not... not.. fishing."

"At least you get out and take a motorcycle ride every now and then. Daniel really doesn't know when to quit. And after this whole thing with the baby on Kheb -- like I said. I'm a little worried about him."

"I know. It would make sense that he'd take the whole thing pretty hard."

"And not say a word about it to anyone. That's what I'm afraid of."

"Yeah.... I'll stick my head in his lab when I leave. Maybe I can get him to go to dinner or something."

"That would be great."

"See you Monday, sir."

"See you."

Jack stared at the phone after he hung up. Then he got up and took the carryout trash and the assorted debris of the week out of the living room and disposed of it, and went downstairs to move all the clean laundry off the sofa in front of the big screen in the basement. 

If Carter was able to dislodge Daniel enough to take him to dinner, Daniel might show up here late tonight.

Jack could only hope. 

He was eating popcorn and sipping on a beer and watching the end of the game when the alarm panel chirped at him. Someone was coming in the front door. Someone who had a key. 

He got up and went to the foot of the stairs. "Daniel?"

"It's me." Daniel was clomping a little. He was tired. Scratching the back of his head, he went straight to the sofa and sank into it, leaning his head all the way back and closing his eyes.

Jack got him a can of pop out of the little fridge and put it on the end table.

"Thanks," Daniel said. He sat there, staring at the ceiling, and then he said, sounding surprised, "I don't know why I'm here."

"Because you couldn't wait to see the Cardinals lose?"

Daniel smiled. He heaved himself to sitting upright and leaned over to pop the top of the can and take a long drink. Jack sat down beside him and turned the TV volume down a little. He was only watching out of general-principles loyalty, and habit. His team had washed out, and it was shaping up to be an all-New York series, just something he could use to pass the time until hockey got interesting.

But Daniel didn't say anything. He leaned back and appeared to direct his attention to the game.

So Jack did too. And pretty soon, Daniel fell asleep. Jack went ahead and watched to the end, and then he clicked off the screen. The sudden quiet was a little shocking. 

He watched Daniel sleep sitting up, his head back, his lips parted. He looked tired. He had a bit of beard growth, from not going home all weekend but showering and sleeping at the mountain. Jack shook his head. Touching Daniel's shoulder, squeezing a little, Jack said, "Hey."

Daniel shook his head and came awake at once. "Jack," he said, blearily, and then he looked around and realized where he was. He yawned.

"Game's over. Let's go to bed."

"You knew St. Louis was doomed," Daniel said, letting Jack pull him to his feet.

"Didn't take a crystal ball for that prediction."

They went on upstairs, and it seemed to Jack that Daniel hesitated just a moment as they passed the guest room door. But Daniel didn't stop, and he didn't say anything, and he followed Jack in to bed.

Jack had almost drifted off when Daniel spoke. 

"It feels like there should be more I can do for Sha're. More I can do to look after her son, but intellectually I know there isn't. I know it's done. It's over. I just have.... There are just so many unanswered questions."

Jack reached for him, because words couldn't help; they were nothing but empty air in the dark room. The touch of a friend, though -- that was very real. Earlier, in the briefing on Thursday, Daniel had described holding the baby, standing alone in a small room of that temple, before the alien took the child away again. Jack was pretty sure that the feeling of that warm weight in his arms was burned into Daniel's skin, more vivid even than the look of the baby's face in his memory. One fleeting instant, lives coming together and diverging, fragile, right there, in your grasp, and then gone again before you could get your bearings. He tightened his grip on Daniel's arm and scooted closer, reaching across Daniel's chest to hold him with both hands. Daniel bent an elbow and wrapped his fingers around Jack's forearm. 

"I went to Kheb hoping to find the child, and expecting to negotiate with someone more on our level. But we've never encountered beings like that. The Nox may have that degree of power, but they don't use it, by choice. I just don't know... I searched and searched for clues about Desala, today and last night, but there's nothing coherent. Nothing I can understand coherently from the scattered descriptions. Buddhist influences, legends from Egypt -- it doesn't make any kind of sense. And it has almost no relevance to what we saw on the planet. I just don't understand."

"You'll keep pecking away at it. Sounds like Bra'tac might have all kinds of information we don't know; things the Jaffa kept from their masters. Things not even Teal'c knows. More facts could turn up."

"Power like that -- how have we never seen them until this? Where are they in the galaxy? Or are they even in the galaxy in any meaningful sense? They could defeat the Goa'uld with no help from anyone. If they chose to. How many of them are there? And is that even the right way to phrase the question?"

"I don't know. Now that we know what to look for, maybe we'll see traces of them around. Get an idea of their motives."

Daniel sighed, and his grip on Jack's arm tightened. "I hate not knowing. I'm trusting that I did the right thing, leaving the boy with them, but God, Jack...."

"You made a call. You can't second guess it. And it was great for us that they zapped those Jaffa. We were in a tight spot."

"I know. I know. I just...."

"Hey. It's late. Get some sleep. Everything'll make more sense in the morning."

"Promises, promises," Daniel grumbled, but he squeezed Jack's arm again and heaved over onto his side. He liked sleeping on his left side. It put a little space between them, but Jack let that go. Maybe Daniel could fall asleep again, if Jack didn't interfere; God knew turning off his brain was what he needed most. And they had all of Sunday, after all. 

But Daniel didn't go to sleep. He lay there a while, and Jack, who had been listening to his breathing without consciously realizing it, finally became aware that his breathing was showing no signs of lengthening in sleep. Daniel turned onto his back and made a frustrated noise.

"I shouldn't be in here anyway. I can go to the guest room and then at least you'll get some rest. Or you could have left me on the sofa."

"Not a very good option. And in fact by waking you up, I was being selfish. I like sleeping in the same bed with you."

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to be very good company now. I'm just going to keep you awake for no reason." Daniel made to flip the blankets back, starting to curl up to sitting, but Jack grabbed his wrist.

"Or," Jack said.

"Or," Daniel repeated.

"Don't play dumb. I have an idea and you know exactly what I mean."

"That's--"

"Aht! Don't argue. If you don't want to, fine, but it's too late at night for us to have an argument."

"It's never too late for an argument," Daniel muttered, but he was pushing the blankets down and settling onto his back again.

"There you go," Jack said approvingly, responding to the actions and not the words. Enough with words, for the moment. He leaned on an elbow and ran his palm under Daniel's t-shirt, up Daniel's warm, slightly sweaty skin, over his belly and up to his chest. He gently pinched one nipple, then skimmed across to pinch the other. Daniel made an encouraging noise and grabbed a handful of Jack's t-shirt, behind his shoulder. Sitting up and taking the hint, Jack stripped it off as Daniel pushed the blankets down further, pulling his legs clear. It was mostly dark, but Jack knew the muscular body stretched out in front of him very, very well. He found Daniel's thigh, and ran his hand over to cup Daniel's package, which was just starting to firm. He took a minute to rub it gently, the heat of Daniel's skin coming through the thin cotton, the heavy balls rounding into Jack's palm. Without letting go, he lifted Daniel's waistband with his other hand, and Daniel immediately lifted his hips to help Jack get rid of his boxers.

Jack smiled and slid his hips further down in the bed. Propped on his elbow again, he leaned closer, nuzzling skin and gently rolling Daniel's balls in his palm.

Daniel smelled wonderful -- warm and pungent. One of Daniel's hands came gently to rest on the back of Jack's head. One more point of connection. 

He ran his lips down the gradually hardening shaft, nuzzled Daniel's balls, and then took the shaft in his mouth. Daniel gasped. Sucking gently, Jack tasted the entire underside at once, using his whole tongue to gently stroke it from side to side. This wasn't something he usually experienced -- the feeling of Daniel coming up to fully hard inside his mouth. Often they started by making out, or with hand jobs, sometimes even before they got undressed. Or lots of times their sex was early in the morning after an exhausted night's sleep -- then, those reliable morning erections made it easy to skip a few steps.

Now, Daniel was getting hard on his tongue, and Jack was loving every second of it. 

He played with Daniel's erection, not setting up the kind of rhythm that would get him off right away, but licking and sucking more randomly. He pushed himself closer so that he could snug his own erection against the warm muscle of Daniel's leg.

Daniel was moaning now, and starting to take matters into his own hands, pushing up gently from his hips, stroking into Jack's mouth. Jack wouldn't give him a rhythm, so he was setting one of his own. Jack smiled, knowing Daniel would feel it, knowing he would know what Jack was thinking: Pushy bastard. Daniel's fingers tightened on his skull. Jack acquiesced, sealing his lips around the firm flesh, letting Daniel fuck his mouth the way he wanted, bobbing his head a little in the rhythm Daniel made. 

Very soon Daniel groaned, and there was his other hand, holding Jack's head, pulling, urging him up and away.

"Let me get you off," Jack objected, bringing up the hand that had been fondling Daniel's balls to gently stroke, twisting around the cockhead. Daniel was leaking now, and Jack's hand slid easily through the spit and the moisture.

"God, Jack... I want... Can we..."

Good. He'd reduced Daniel to blurry incoherence, succeeded in getting him to feel and not think. Mission achieved.

Daniel was sitting up, pushing at Jack to get him off his legs. And then Daniel was turning over, offering his ass, his t-shirt falling around his waist. Even in the dim light, he looked like a centerfold. 

"Yeah, okay," Jack said, and swallowed. He pulled off his shorts. Putting a knee between Daniel's knees, he reached for the drawer in the nightstand where the lube was. 

Maybe Daniel knew he wasn't all that into swallowing, although it was always hot to see Daniel come, or maybe Daniel hadn't thought about that and just wanted to be fucked tonight. Who knew. It was, as they say, all good.

He had the lube now, and with a quick twist of one hand he put some on himself, while with the other hand, he took a little longer to stroke a generous dollop around Daniel's hole, and then push two fingers gently inside, more about spreading the slickness than getting going with the sex.

Daniel loved it, though. He groaned and tilted his pelvis, as if to encourage Jack to go faster, deeper. Jack wiped his free hand on the sheet and shifted to his knees, pulling Daniel's hips to the right level. Rising to his elbows, Daniel let his head hang. Jack gave him a couple more gentle strokes with his fingers, making sure to get all the lube inside of him, and then slowly pulled out. Daniel made a needy, objecting noise that went straight to Jack's dick. He had both hands on Daniel's hips now, and he squeezed, and answered with an encouraging rumble. Then he took hold of his dick to push inside, guiding himself slowly, his eyes closing involuntarily at the bliss of it. 

If Jack didn't rush this, if he could balance the speed of his strokes with the deep, powerful pounding Daniel loved when he was really worked up, he could make Daniel come just from this.

On the other hand, it was unspeakably hot to know that Daniel would use his own hand on himself to push himself over the edge if the fucking wasn't going to quite do the job. 

All good indeed.

They were both groaning now, very soon finding a satisfying, driving groove, and Jack slowly increased the speed of his strokes, feeling his own orgasm start to build, wanting to hold back until he could get Daniel over the edge too. 

"God, Jack," Daniel said, and he was ready, he was pushing back, stroke for stroke, and Jack could feel him shift his weight to get his hand on his own dick. And then he was groaning as the climax hit him, sagging a little between his shoulders, his head falling all the way forward.

"That's it," Jack groaned, and he was coming, too, the urge to move, to slam home those last few strokes, irresistible. He leaned over Daniel, wrapping arms around his middle, and they slid to the side. 

"Sleep now," Daniel murmured, and Jack felt his muscles release, felt him relax. 

^^^^

Daniel was up first in the morning, which almost never happened. Jack had waited until he drifted off completely and finally rolled away, deeply asleep. Then he'd quietly sneaked into the bathroom to clean up, and had managed to swipe at Daniel with a warm towel without waking him. 

Usually Jack was up first, but this time he rolled over to the sunlight peeking through the drapes, and an empty bed. Daniel had left his t-shirt on the floor by his underwear, and presumably had grabbed some of Jack's things to wear. Jack put on his bathrobe and went in search of coffee.

Daniel was on the deck, wearing borrowed sweats, watching the trees, a mug in his hand. Jack sat down beside him. Daniel didn't look over. Jack didn't like the expression on his face. He sipped his own coffee and looked at the yard. He was going to have to mow one more time, after all. Though he could probably get away without weedeating. 

"You were wrong," Daniel said.

"What?"

"It's morning, and it doesn't all make more sense. In fact it makes less sense than ever." He drained his mug and got up. "Thanks for the coffee, Jack. And the company. See you at work."

Jack just sat there. That was out of left field. He heard the door, and then in a minute he heard Daniel's car start in the driveway. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. 

A long time ago, Daniel had shocked him out of a suicidal fog with one simple sentence, reminding him not to take a bunch of innocent people with him when he went, while using the excuse of his orders, his duty, to cloak his own cowardice.

Maybe Jack had underestimated Daniel's capacity to get lost in that same kind of fog -- despair, loss, grief. They were stacking up on Daniel, that was obvious.

Daniel had given him a way to go on, once upon a time. Jack hoped he could figure out how to return the favor. And soon.


	8. Going, Going, Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during Season 4.

Jack tried, and he heard Carter try too, more than once, to help Daniel see his way to a new sense of motivation after they closed the book on Sha're's child and on returning Skaara to his family. Teal'c didn't say much, but he and Daniel gradually started spending more time together. Jack noticed that they sometimes meditated together and lifted weights, too, and so he started scheduling some team socializing again; something he hadn't done with any regularity since Sha're's death. He had worried about how Daniel felt about Teal'c, even while knowing that Daniel would be professional, even to a fault, on missions. But maybe he didn't have to worry about that any more. 

The kick in the teeth that was the rejection of Daniel by his grandfather didn't help their cause much.

Jack understood, down to his bones, that painful feeling of not knowing what you were fighting for. That way you went through the motions, fell back on habit, just to get through the day. Once upon a time, the sheer wonder of being interplanetary explorers had done it for Daniel when nothing else could. But maybe he'd lost too much to feel a sense of wonder any more.

He'd thought they'd have some kind of triumphant "Oh my God you're not dead after all" sex after he and Teal'c and Carter managed to blow up Thor's ship, and hopefully all those creepy space bugs with it.

But Daniel was distant. Friendly, but distant. Jack was starting to wonder if he'd missed a memo. Had Daniel broken off their thing without telling him?

Even the ethical win Daniel could post, after their run-in with the Space Nazis, didn't seem to cheer him up.

Then, Jack felt he was exposing a downright reckless, self-destructive side when they were saddled with those goddamned armbands. Jack called him on it, too, but Daniel brushed him off. Said they'd all been reckless, said Jack had done more stupid shit than Daniel had. It was quite a noisy argument. 

After that, Jack was relieved when Daniel showed up at his house after the bloody debacle that was the Tok'ra summit.

Yeah, there were zatarcs all right. It's just that they hadn't been planted only among the feeble unsuspecting Tau'ri. In the debriefing, Jack had told Hammond, with only the frailest rein on his temper, that Tok'ra arrogance was going to get them all killed one day. Jacob Carter excepted. 

Carter had been excused from the debrief, at Jack's own order, and he didn't like the look in Fraiser's eyes when he checked with her that night before going home. Fraiser had found some excuse to hold Carter for observation, over her objections. Jack had approved. Fraiser had told him she'd debrief Carter herself, which sounded like a wonderful idea to Jack. He'd trust Fraiser over a platoon of AF psychiatrists. If anyone could help Carter process this, it was her. 

When he got home, he'd avoided going straight to the Jameson's by sheer willpower, and made himself eat a decent supper first. 

He allowed the savoring of two fingers, neat, while he surfed through a million pointless network channels, found his attention entirely uncaptured by the Vikings game, considered and discarded his "Best of 'The Simpsons'" collection, and finally managed to sit still and watch a tape of "Red River." Halfway through the movie, his cell rang. It was Daniel. Yes, he could come over. No problem. 

Daniel came, bearing takeout, and ate rather more than half of it when Jack said he'd already had dinner. Jack nibbled on some of the Governor's Shrimp out of solidarity and because he never could resist it. Which Daniel knew. 

Daniel, a miracle, watched the movie without relentlessly deconstructing it. 

When it was over, Daniel turned the screen off and then leaned back, settling into the cushions, facing Jack.

"Do you think that one or 'The Searchers' is better?"

Jack raised his eyebrows. Jesus. Daniel apparently needed a distraction too. Old Westerns were something they could talk about without fighting, it turned out. It was a nice conversation. And when he noticed that Daniel was looking more at his mouth than his eyes as Jack was theorizing why it had been "Red River" that had gotten all the Oscar nominations, well, without pausing, Jack simply moved closer and started running a casual hand along Daniel's arm, touching his neck, getting their legs touching, while they talked.

Daniel let him finish a sentence, and leaned in to kiss him.

They didn't have much to say after that, until they were lying in bed, naked and sweaty and sticky. Jack drifted, skin to skin, feeling satisfied and relaxed, until Daniel said, "This is so dangerous for you."

Jack raised a languid hand to squeeze Daniel's shoulder and said, "I'll be the judge of that."

"Seriously, I know what happened when they put you and Sam under the zatarc detector. That relationship is dangerous, doing this on the down-low with me is dangerous, and all of it is making less sense to me with every passing month."

Jack frowned. He let the thing Daniel said about Carter go for the moment. Daniel was worried about them sleeping together? Now? "Horse, barndoor?" he said. 

Daniel, flat on his back, stared at the ceiling and started running agitated fingers through his hair. "It was risky to start this when we met again, and it's risky to keep it up. It's too dangerous for you. Like you said -- you have to lie, to everyone. Look what lying almost got you today. That was..." Daniel visibly shivered.

"Creepy, yeah, no argument there. But the lying isn't a problem for me. We do what we have to do, you know? And why are you suddenly doubting this? What's up? Nothing has changed with us."

Daniel didn't look at him. Daniel let his hands drop and squeezed his eyes shut.

Jack got up on one elbow and gave Daniel's shoulder a little shake. How the fuck had what had happened today shaken Daniel to this extent? It made no sense. None. Zip. Zero. "Hey. None of this is news. You know I tend to get overinvolved with my teams, plus the kind of work we do? So not what the frat regs were designed for."

"I'm your Achilles heel, Jack. I never wanted that."

"Like I said -- let me be the judge of that. I'm not sorry we got involved. Never have been."

"You don't understand. It's just that I couldn't live with myself if because of me, because of our ... whatever it is.... you were court martialed, or stripped of your rank, or anything close to that. I can't be the thing that brings you down."

"You won't be."

Daniel had his fists on his forehead now. Not a good look for him. "You don't know that."

"I gotta tell you, I don't know what brought this on. Now. Today. Are you feeling like you have to distance yourself because you heard that I said I was feeling too much for Carter? Because if that stupid Tok'ra had gone on to ask me, I could have said I was feeling too much for you, and for T. It's kind of what I do. But--"

"No, Jack," Daniel said, pulling his fists down, and staring at Jack with a curl of his lip. The two syllables dripped the kind of razor-edged sarcasm that Daniel usually reserved for NID representatives or Kinsey. It took Jack aback. "This isn't some kind of jealous fit, some kind of passive-aggressive redirection. Give me more fucking credit than that."

And Daniel sat up abruptly and went into the bathroom. Unusually for them, in this circumstance, he shut the door. Firmly.

Jacks thoughts spooled along, the words he would have said, forming clearly in his head. Daniel couldn't have heard them through the closed door, even if Jack had said them out loud. _ ...But you're in another category. Yeah, I have feelings for you, too. Feelings way beyond what I'm supposed to have. But it's more than that. You, I might be in love with._

The thought should have shocked Jack, but really, it didn't.

Maybe he should have said it out loud.

Daniel was in the bathroom for a while, and when he came out, he seemed calmer.

"I should go home. It doesn't look good, me spending the night here so much."

Jack swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. "It's not all that much, Daniel. And I'm not seeing any kind of human surveillance right now. You know what they can do from a distance is very inaccurate. I'm not worried."

_Stay. Don't go. Not like this. What's wrong with you? You claim you're not jealous, but are you misunderstanding? You're putting more distance between us, all the time._

"Well, I'll be worried for both of us, then." And Daniel leaned over and kissed him, sweetly, intently, deeply. And Jack, stunned and almost pacified, sat there on his sex-soaked bed, and watched him leave.

^^^^

Jack wasn't pacified for long. The shit Daniel pulled on P5S-381 took the cake. 

Oh, it all ended well. Everyone got their home, their happy ending. But Jack was furious. After the debriefing, he stormed into Daniel's lab. Daniel glanced up, surprised. Jack folded his arms. 

"Don't you ever put me in that position again."

Daniel put down his pencil. His face acquired that glacial calm that could mean anything. "Do you really want to do this here?"

Jack rolled his eyes and turned around and closed the door he'd come in, and threw the deadbolt. Then he crossed the lab to the door to the other hallway and closed that one too. He turned to loom over Daniel at his desk, prompting Daniel to stand up.

Jack said, vehement and low, "I pushed the button! I killed you!"

When he stood, Daniel had brought his pencil with him, and was now fiddling with it with both hands. "Clearly not. Here I am."

Jack began to pace. "But I did! You backed me into a corner; Teal'c and Carter both saw it. I. Pushed. The. Button. To. Detonate. A. Bomb. That killed you! As far as I knew at the time!"

Throwing the pencil on the desk, Daniel demanded, "You just don't trust me, do you?"

"Of course I trust you! I believed you when you said you were on the ship! Teal'c believed you! Even though you'd bent the truth earlier!"

"You may have trusted me to tell you where I was, but you didn't trust me to find another way. Which as you will recall, was all I was talking about the entire time you were hellbent on getting Sam to build a bomb to exterminate a _sentient species!_"

"You're not hearing me." Jack stalked closer, facing Daniel across his desk. "Listen. Don't ever put me in that position again."

"Then don't push things to the point where there is no good option left."

"That's not what happened. You deliberately got yourself on that ship, knowing that I had to destroy it. Knowing the Enkarans' lives were at stake. What are you? Suicidal?"

"Is that what you think? Is that what happened?" 

"You knew there was a bomb! You knew I would push the trigger! You knew I had to do it to save the Enkarans!"

Now, finally, Daniel raised his voice. "You took sides, Jack. You picked the people we knew already. You didn't give a damn about the Gadmeer. They were abstractions to you and their emissary was just a robot. Well, they were real to me. Just as real as the Enkarans are."

"Damn right they were an abstraction. They were ones and zeros in a database. You spent weeks with Heddy and Eliam and the others. They are our friends, Daniel. You looked them into the eye, ate their food! For weeks!"

Daniel shook his head. His expression was pure exasperation. "Jack, listen to me. I had no intention of dying on that ship and I had no intention of letting Lotan kill our friends. I knew there would be a way to get out of it. I was going for the win-win, Jack. We always find a way out. It's what we do." 

"Yeah, we do. Most of the time. Not always."

Exasperation was replaced by icy anger. "Don't rub my nose in our failures, Jack. Believe me, I'm more cognizant of them than you can possibly realize." 

Jack took a deep breath and went around the desk. Daniel turned halfway to face him, and crossed his arms. Jack got way into his space, further then he should have, given the everpresent security cameras. He put a hand on Daniel's arm. He squeezed. Hard. 

"I'm not rubbing your nose in anything except for telling you not to make me kill you again, ever. Any last-minute, Hail Mary shit that involves forcing me to blow you up should not be on the table as a course of action. Ever. Don't do that to me. Ever again. How can I make it plainer? Don't make me do that, Daniel." 

Daniel tilted his head a little. His eyes were sad. "The lives of the many, Jack."

Jack narrowed his eyes, and turned and left, banging the metal door against concrete. _Fucking Star Trek logic. This isn't Hollywood. This is real life. Real lives._

Later that night, he called Daniel. Daniel didn't pick up. He left a message. Daniel didn't call him back all weekend. So maybe that was the memo, then. 

On missions, Daniel was just the same. Snarky, impassioned, ethical, impulsive by turns. But off base? He turned down Jack's invitations, and never showed up unannounced any more at the house. At least he was still dutifully showing up for team nights. Jack wondered how long that would last. 

After Sarah Gardner was taken as a host, Jack couldn't stand it. He couldn't play it cool any more. 

He checked that Daniel had signed out, and he went to his apartment. 

When Daniel answered the door, he looked fine. Which was not a good sign, as far as Jack was concerned. Then, standing in the door, he sighed. He made no move to step aside and let Jack in.

"I'll be fine, Jack. You don't have to check on me."

"I'm not checking on you. I just thought you might want a little company."

"Actually, company is the last thing I want. I'll see you tomorrow."

"You're not taking a couple of days off?"

"Why?"

"Daniel--"

"I really would prefer to be alone tonight, Jack, if you don't mind." He actually started to step back and close the door.

"So this is it, then. You're ending the personal side of our relationship without even being courteous enough to tell me first."

Jack saw it before Daniel could veil it -- the hurt, the bewilderment, the shock. All quickly pushed behind a mask of control.

"You're the one who hates scenes. You're the one who never wants to talk."

"Daniel. Let me in. Please."

"You know it's better this way, Jack--"

"I know no such thing."

"Let's keep working together. Let's keep being able to, can we do that? Please? You need to leave now."

"Is this what you want, Daniel? Really?" Jack clenched his hands into fists. He could put his boot between the door and the jamb. Could make Daniel let him in. Except that would be wrong. So wrong.

"It's how it has to be. Goodnight, Jack. See you tomorrow."

And the door closed in his face.


	9. "When You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in Season 4.

Time travel is real. Jack knows this. It's one of the most mind-boggling things he's experienced since getting called back to active duty for the Stargate program, and that's saying a lot. But boggled though he was by the discovery, he had to accept what happened. He doesn't believe; he knows. Like Carter knows, but without the math to back it up. Getting zapped back to 1969 and then forward to see Cassie Fraiser as a grey-haired grandmother was undeniable.

Carter could give him the theories and the math on why time travel works and why the gate technology can sometimes provide a mechanism for making it possible. But he tries not to think about it too much. Because he takes seriously Carter's warnings about changing things, about playing God.

Lately, now that Daniel has put them on a professional-only footing whether Jack likes it or not, he's been engaging in a little personal, low-tech time travel. Memories come back to him all the time, both painful and good. It's a familiar mechanism. 

It's kicking in tonight. The game on the big-screen in the basement couldn't hold his interest. So he wandered upstairs again, went out on the deck, sniffed the chilling air, refilled the bird feeder. Thought about the telescope. Discarded that idea. Went down to the kitchen and checked the last newspaper anyway for the astronomy update. Not much going on this week in the sky. Nothing worth dragging the heavy cover off the 'scope, or going to the trouble of finding some gloves. 

He stood in the kitchen for a minute, looking around aimlessly, then snapped off the light and stood in the middle of the floor in the dark. Then he pulled a Heineken out of the fridge and went back into the living room and built a fire. 

He sat down on the chair Daniel had sat in, that first night back from Abydos, after Sha're had been taken, and pulled it a little diagonal so that he had a better view of the flames. When the fire was burning strongly, he popped open the beer, took a long pull, and gave in. Let the memories come. 

He'd first encountered Daniel when he was on leave in Chicago, back when Charlie was still alive, back before he'd withdrawn from Sara so far that their divorce was only the acknowledgment of a months-old reality.

Seeing him again at the bare-bones beginning of the Stargate Command had been a shock, but it had been a tremor among earthquakes. That memory is actually one of the good ones. 

He'd started his work as West's 2IC the very same day that Daniel arrived at the mountain. He'd been re-upped because West had decided that Catharine Langford was getting close enough to success that some contingency plans were called for. Jack had been told that Dr. Langford had hired a new translator, a real expert, allegedly someone who could finally get the job done, but he had not connected the name with the guy he'd met back in Wrigleyville. So he was as surprised as hell to see the young professor he'd gone to bed with on that incredible night. He was very grateful to have caught sight of Daniel before Daniel saw him. That gave Jack time to make sure his poker face was in place.

He didn't remember exactly what he'd thought when he'd recognized Daniel. Probably some variant of Oh, shit. He did remember the physical sensation that had washed over him -- pure surprise, like being doused with a bucket of ice. 

Jack had taken a moment to eavesdrop on the hints that Langford's people were dropping, and he clearly remembered how he had spoken up to challenge Daniel, because he was thinking tactically at that moment despite his shocked surprise. He'd sensed the importance of engaging Daniel on the facts immediately, if he was to have a prayer of preventing Daniel from saying something like, "Oh, God, it's you," when he recognized Jack.

If he recognized Jack.

Which he had. 

Jack let Dr. Langford challenge him in turn, with a distinct feeling of relief. Because he'd seen Daniel's eyes widen in recognition. But luckily for him, Daniel had something far more intriguing to think about just then than two-year-old memories of a one-night stand. Daniel, as Jack was to learn over and over in the years that followed, was never more alive than when captivated by an archaeological mystery. The work trumped everything for him. Always. 

After their brief exchange, and after he'd shut down Dr. Langford, Jack had turned away as soon as he could, taking refuge in one of the classified areas where the science types couldn't follow him. He'd lit a cigarette and spoken out loud to himself.

"You know this complicates things."

West had followed him. It was a sign of how shaken up Jack had been that he'd failed to register those quiet, heavy steps. West had assumed Jack was talking to him.

Which was just as well.

After that meeting, Jack had intentionally avoided Daniel until the day Daniel discovered that the non-hieroglyph markings were constellations, not words. And then, he'd run into him and Kawalsky in that dive of a bar near Peterson. And had once again found him irresistible. 

Time. Time traveled; time passed. So many things, good and bad, had happened to Jack since that day. And Daniel had been there for all of it.

Daniel was still here. Just at arm's length. Jack sipped at his beer, and watched the fire until the logs crumbled into red coals, and then pushed himself up the long, dark hallway and put himself to bed. The bedroom seemed cold. He was pretty sure it was his imagination. Sometimes loneliness was indistinguishable from cold. That, too, was familiar. 

Home by night. Familiar solitude. But by day, working with Daniel after Daniel had ended their... thing.... was a special kind of hell.

One part of Jack was really wallowing in the "I told you so's," rehearsing all the reasons for the frat regs, even slipping a bit sideways into the old guilt, the guilt he'd thought he'd dealt with years ago -- the guilt about being That Way. 

Ordinarily Jack was entirely comfortable with the fact that he swung both ways. He didn't have to explain it to anyone, or justify it. It was nobody's business but his own and the people he went to bed with, and society and the Church and the Air Force could go fuck themselves with their rules and their bigotry and their hypocrisy. 

But now, day after day, mission after mission, watching Daniel turn into a parody of himself, a robot version, a controlled, sarcastic, walled-off version, was breaking his heart, making him question himself. If he was this miserable, maybe all his choices were wrong. Maybe it wasn't his choices. Maybe it was him. Maybe he was wrong, bad, fucked up. How had it come to this? 

He tried not to go there. He knew it was pointless. 

Sometimes he'd wake up at night, hard and leaking, out of dreams of having sex with Daniel, dreams of Daniel kissing him, holding him, telling Jack he loved him.

Other nights he suffered through nightmares of Daniel being tortured, of being killed, and Jack helpless to do a thing about it. 

The work helped. The team helped. He'd been through worse than this and survived. But Carter and Teal'c both could see that something had changed; that something was wrong. 

He clung to professionalism, and Daniel clung to polite formality.

And then Shar'e's son showed up.

When they got the call from Khasuf, going back to Abydos was harder than Jack had anticipated. And he had anticipated that it wouldn't be exactly easy. To make it worse, Jack didn't miss the glances from Teal'c and Carter when he expressed his readiness to bring the kid back with them to Earth. Jack had some idea what they might be risking, but he figured he'd better cut to the chase. Teal'c and Carter were right to be wary. But Jack had thought this through. First of all, no matter the risk, Daniel would insist. Second, the possibility of mining the harcesis knowledge would put Hammond in favor. Thus, Jack's threat assessment on site was done in record time.

Under that desert sun, it was excruciating to listen to the team delicately talk their way around the history here, picking their way awkwardly to find neutral terms to describe the situation, trying to blunt the words that would describe Sha're's suffering in the years she'd been a host. But as soon as Jack had seen the boy walking toward them over the sands of Abydos, he knew this would have to play itself out. There was no point in trying to dodge it. 

Back at the SGC, he was furious that the kid apparently put Daniel into a coma. Furious enough to go along with the Tok'ras' involvement. 

He'd watched, stunned, when a revived Daniel and an apparent 8-year-old tag-teamed Aldwin and deftly cut off his plans. And he wondered just exactly what Daniel meant by saying it was time to choose a new path. He remembered the cryptic shit Daniel had made him swallow on Kheb; this didn't sound all that different. 

But Shifu left, in a swirl of white light, and Daniel had to deal with the fallout.

Not alone, though. If Jack had anything to say about it. 

Jack let about an hour pass after Shifu's departure, hovering in the control room while Hammond, Siler, Davis and Carter fussed over what Shifu had done to their systems. The computers had registered data as the kid had dialed himself out, using his glowy powers, but what that data meant seemed to be puzzling them all. 

Jack pretended to listen, and he made himself wait. When he got too bored to stand there, arms folded, faking attention, he brought coffee for everyone, earning a surprised glance from Carter. And when he finally allowed himself to go to Daniel's lab, he made himself walk slowly, noticing every bend in the hallway, every scar left by this alien incursion and that hallway battle. He swore there were still scuffs in the paint stripes left by wolf claws. 

He paused in the doorway to Daniel's lair. Daniel was bent over a book, pen in hand, hand poised over a legal pad. 

When Daniel didn't look up, Jack gave it three breaths, and then he sauntered in and sat on the sofa. Daniel still didn't look at him.

Jack leaned back and crossed his arms. He had a koosh ball in his pants pocket. He could resort to that if he had to. He was here for the long haul. 

Daniel glanced up at him, over his glasses, and looked down again. 

Jack turned over several conversational gambits. This could go very very sideways, very very quickly.

"I'm not checking up on you," he lied. "I know you're all right," he lied again. "I'm just ... here."

Daniel looked at him again, and this time his expression was puzzled instead of blank. Jack looked on that as an improvement. Daniel put his pen down, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.

Jack went on, trying for casual, "Before you wearily ask why am I here, I can point out that you may have momentarily forgotten that I know very precisely just how much that sucked for you, and that I want to tell you how much I get the fact that some part of what you are feeling is about losing a son you never really had."

Daniel put his glasses back on, rather abruptly, and met Jack's eyes. He looked shocked.

"Oh, yes," Jack said, wryly. "Despite everything, I do get it."

Daniel folded his hands over the legal pad on his desk and looked down. "You're right," Daniel said. "It would probably do me good to talk about what happened. To get it out of my head and deflate it, defuse it, by just saying it all out loud, just talking about it."

"Even without the added weirdness of whatever the kid made you dream, this was all still quite amazingly shitty," Jack agreed. He felt light, like he was flying. He'd said the right thing. Daniel was talking. "So, feel free."

Daniel, still looking down, nodded. He was very still. "Shifu, in that dream, showed me the ramifications of us knowing everything the Goa'uld know. He showed me in a very personal way what it would mean to share their knowledge. Because he can't share their knowledge without sharing their evil, their callousness and their selfishness."

"In a 'personal way,' " Jack nudged. He didn't make it a question. Daniel was talking. Jesus. 

"He showed me what I might do if I had that knowledge. If I had the knowledge and the power and the ability to follow through on all my petty whims, all my selfish desires. If I had their godlike ability to do whatever I wanted, and to believe that because I wanted something, it was right."

"Scary," Jack said.

Daniel laughed. It was a bitter sound, not humorous at all. "I ended up killing Teal'c, putting Sam in jail and thwarting you when you came to shoot me."

"In your dream, I wanted to shoot you?"

"You did shoot me, Jack. I had a force shield to stop you."

"Okay, that's even crazier than I imagined."

"Yeah. Well."

"Paging Dr. Freud."

Daniel abruptly got up and started to pace. "Well, in your defense, in my dream I was going to destroy Moscow. And in the end, I did."

Jack closed his eyes. That damn kid. Those damn glowy beings. Was this necessary? Really? He knew how vivid, how real, dreams could be. He opened his eyes and leaned forward. He said, "You haven't shot me, Daniel. And Moscow is still there. That's important."

Daniel was hard to watch, going back and forth, behind his desk, not coming near Jack. "I knew you were going to try to stop me, in the dream. I wasn't angry at you at all. Quite the contrary. And enough with the psychology -- it wasn't my dream; it was something Shifu caused me to experience. It didn't feel like an alternate reality, but...."

Jack found he had stood as well. He didn't let himself go to Daniel. He put his hands in his pockets. "I just want to point out that you haven't shot me, we are still here, and if he wanted to teach you a lesson, apparently he has."

"Exactly. I don't know what to make of it, Jack. I really don't. Except he showed me in the strongest possible terms that I can't tie anything I do in the future, here, to him, or to Sha're. Even after I left him with Oma Desala, when he was still a baby, I hadn't forgotten about him. I hadn't forgotten my promise to Sha're to find him, to take care of him. And yet...." Daniel stopped, looking into the distance. Jack could only wonder what he was seeing. "He told me I had to stop feeling any tie to him. He told me that my only obligation to the two of them is to--"

He was facing away from Jack, his hands on his hips. He dropped his head. Unable to stop himself, Jack quietly approached, and put a hand on Daniel's shoulder from behind. Daniel stiffened and raised his head. He didn't turn, but he didn't push Jack away or evade his touch, either.

He went on, in a voice clogged with tears, "To let go. To understand that my debt to them is ... not paid, exactly. But discharged somehow. Done with. Over. That it will warp my motives and my, my destiny, if I continue to act, to make decisions, with the memory of Sha're or my interest in her son as my motivation, in any way. And that I can't cloak my selfish desire to stay connected to them with some kind of high-minded goal about using what they know to defeat the Goa'uld, or cloak my desire for revenge on Apophis in a lofty mission objective of protecting Earth."

"Wow," Jack said. His hand had a mind of its own. It was patting Daniel's shoulder now; patting and intermittently squeezing. Daniel's shoulder was warm and firm and solid. 

Daniel was still resolutely looking away from Jack. "I don't want to let go, Jack. She -- they -- I have to have something to hang on to. I need --"

He was breathing faster now, more heavily. Jack was sure he was trying not to cry. He gripped Daniel's shoulder, hard. He said, "Daniel."

But it was wrong. It was pushing too hard. Because Daniel put his face into his hands, and his shoulders heaved, once, twice, and he said, not looking up, "Please leave, Jack. Please. Just."

Jack blew a regretful breath out his nose and took his hand away. 

"You can hang on to us, Daniel. You have your team. You have me," he said, but Daniel didn't look around or look up.

He said, "Thank you, Jack. Please. Go now."

Well. That was clear. Unmistakably clear. Jack went. 

^^^^

So that was educational. Daniel had gotten his lesson, his teaching dream, and Jack had gotten schooled as well. He knew what he was supposed to do, how this was supposed to go. Daniel wanted nothing heavy, now. Daniel didn't want his comfort, or even his presence. Daniel had decided he had to get through this alone.

Jack well remembered a time when he would have thought the same thing. It had been Daniel who had taught him better.

Unfortunately, that particular lesson only seemed to go one way. 

The silly idea of betting on Carter's downtime was one of the few things he tried in the next few weeks that struck a spark from Daniel. It made him smile, and also, it made Teal'c look intrigued. Jack thought Teal'c might have smiled on the inside when Jack first started kidding around about it.

He kept it up even when Daniel was off world with SG-5. Jack sent him, first, a cryptic message, and then, an actual folded bill, even though Carter got wise to him. But all the fun went out of the game right after that. Barber died, and Daniel lost his shit, and then one misty damp morning Jack was talking Daniel off a balcony.

Daniel had talked Jack out of suicide once, but Jack had honestly never expected to have to return the favor. 

Loran was a kick in the nuts. His situation was unspeakably horrible, and it had to trip sad and deep emotions not just in Jack but in the entire team. He was so glad that for once they could actually help.

Once the kid and Carter, with their smaller body masses, had flushed the addiction from their systems, it was just him and Daniel, left alone in a palace by the sea. 

Jack had asked the SGC for fishing tackle, and he was out on the beach when Daniel came to him, walking slowly, his hands in his pockets. The sun had peeked out; a rare thing on this cloudy planet.

Jack caught sight of him when he was a ways down the beach, and kept reeling in his line, and then cast again. So far he hadn't had a whisper of a bite, and surf fishing was not his favorite thing on the best of days, but hey. It was what there was, here. He wasn't going to complain.

Daniel came up to him and just stood there, about ten feet away, looking out at the sea. The clouds passing overhead in the stiff shore breeze made the sunlight vanish and reappear. In the intermittent light, the waves were alternately deep blue and sad gray. 

Finally Daniel came closer, and bent and rooted around in Jack's backpack until he found Jack's bottle of water. He opened it and drank, not even asking permission. It made Jack smile. He cast again, farther out this time.

"You carried me here," Daniel said.

"Yeah," Jack said.

"On your back," Daniel said.

"Yeah." He began to reel in his line again. 

"You threw a fit in the infirmary when I was unconscious from the withdrawal."

"You have good sources," Jack said, catching the swinging hook, digging it into the cork handle of the rod, and carefully laying the rod on the gravel. He picked up the bottle and had a drink. He tried not to think about Daniel's mouth. 

"Yeah, well," Daniel said. He had his hands in his pockets again. His boonie was pulled low, and he was looking at his feet. 

Jack turned to face him. Jack rolled the dice. "You know I'm not going to hold you to what you said, a while back. I don't share your fears about us having a thing."

"A thing," Daniel repeated, and there was a smile in his voice. "Is that what it was." He bent and picked up a handful of gravel. He poked through it with one finger until he found a big piece. He threw that one, side-armed, as hard as he could, low and fast over the waves. It didn't skip. It sank into the side of a wave.

"What it is," Jack risked. Jack took a step closer. Daniel threw another rock, and another. The last one he threw overhand, like a baseball pitcher. 

Jack said, "A thing. A relationship. I'm not too concerned about labels."

Daniel threw the rest of the rocks in his left hand all at once, and dusted his palms. He met Jack's eyes. "Labels are important. And what we were doing wasn't worth the risk."

Daniel sounded like he wanted to be convinced. Like he was uncertain of the truth of what he was asserting.

Jack stopped, well within personal distance. Daniel regarded him steadily. Jack couldn't tell if he was upset, or what, exactly. He looked so distant. 

"You make your judgments; I'll make mine," Jack said, and when Daniel didn't flinch, and didn't move, Jack put a hand on his shoulder and brought his face close. Very close. Closer. Jack kissed Daniel's smooth, chilly lips, and after a second, Daniel kissed him back. Jack put his other hand on Daniel's other shoulder, and brought their chests together, still kissing.

Daniel broke the kiss to say, "What about the rule about no sex offworld, ever."

And Jack said, "Rules are made to be broken."

Daniel still wasn't resisting, so Jack slid his arms behind to bring Daniel even closer, and kept kissing. The kissing got deep. Daniel's body got very interested. Maybe he was simply looking for a little oblivion, or maybe he was bored out of his mind on this planet. Whatever. He was close to Jack. Letting Jack do this. Not pushing away. 

Good enough.

Jack wasn't hurrying. Kissing Daniel was fantastic; intimate and arousing and so, so satisfying. Daniel had shaved that morning, and his skin was smooth and his lips were plush. He registered that Daniel's arms had come around him. Daniel's palms were flat against his spine. Daniel wasn't melting, wasn't giving in, but he was definitely reciprocating. He was definitely with the program. Jack smiled. Daniel's mouth was just as warm and welcoming as Jack remembered. It was entirely absorbing to kiss Daniel, to explore with tongue and lips, unhurried. Hot and wet. 

The gravel was dry where they were standing, a couple of feet above the last tide line. The humid air was warm and close. 

Still kissing, Jack slid his arms around and in until he could find Daniel's belt and Daniel's fly. Daniel murmured something, and stiffened a little. But Jack had already ascertained that he was hard. Just like Jack was. From the kissing. 

Yeah. Their thing was an "is". Not a "was." Whatever Daniel was trying to tell himself. Jack's heart soared, flying as high as those fast-moving clouds above.

Jack murmured in a reassuring tone, not trying to form words, still kissing. Daniel's hands stayed where they were, on his back. Jack had gotten Daniel's BDU pants open, and he put one hand on Daniel's hip and slid one down. Daniel was wearing boxers, which meant that his dick had swelled while hanging down, along his thigh. Jack got his fingertips under the waistband of the boxers, and took a second to luxuriously scritch through Daniel's sparse, curling hair, which made Daniel grunt with pleasure. He was still kissing. Jack let him take over the management of the kissing. He had something else to explore, here. He pressed gently down, folding his hand around Daniel's long, narrow cock, reacquainting himself. The skin was warm, satiny, the shaft getting harder by the second. Daniel had his tongue in Jack's mouth, and when Jack's hand closed around the head, Daniel groaned and his tongue got aggressive, urgent, fucking Jack's mouth. Jack smiled, kind of ruining the kiss, and he pulled back and gave Daniel a final, closed-mouth press of his lips. Then he knelt, letting his face drag along Daniel's jacket. He opened his eyes when he was down.

"Jack..." 

"It's okay," Jack said, and then he was pulling the waistband of the boxers down, along with the sagging pants, and putting Daniel in his mouth. He closed his eyes at the bliss of it, the long hardness. He shaped his tongue around it. 

Daniel groaned and put his hands on either side of Jack's head, gently, not grabbing or clutching. Just holding.

Jack held his hips with both hands and explored, as if it were the first time.

He remembered that vividly; how Daniel had taken him back to his apartment in Chicago, how they'd fallen in to bed, so eager, so happy. How Daniel had fucked him. He was very hard, himself, now, his boxer-briefs holding his erection up against his stomach, just the opposite of Daniel's earlier. 

Daniel was warm and alive in his mouth. He played a while, now sucking, now rolling the shaft around in his mouth, now tasting and kissing the head. Daniel got very wet when he was aroused, and he was wet now. He tasted sharp and sweet, the clear pre-come so different than the full load he would shoot when Jack made him come.

Thinking about that made Jack want to make it happen. He slid his hands a little further around to cup Daniel's ass -- his gorgeous, firm, rounded ass -- and shaped his whole mouth around Daniel's cock and began moving in a firm and rhythmic way that suggested Daniel should fuck his mouth.

And Daniel apparently agreed. He cried out, and his hands tightened on Jack's head, and he started to move, matching Jack's rhythm, settling his weight on his heels, using his knees as shock absorbers. When he came, he was silent, stiffening and seizing, clutching Jack's head hard. Jack held on to him in case he lost his balance, and waited him out, swallowing easily. He nudged his face even closer in, getting his nose against skin and hair, getting a good whiff of Daniel's rich and intoxicating smell, nudging the tip of Daniel's cock against his soft palate. His eyes wanted to roll back in his head, it tasted and felt so good. 

After a minute, Jack could feel Daniel's racing pulse start to slow, and he groaned again. He pulled away, slowly, and Jack kept his lips sealed around the soft skin the whole way. Daniel staggered a little, and Jack reached for his elbow, but he turned, and took a step away and did up his pants. Jack leaned an elbow on his own knee and contemplated getting up. He was warm all over, his erection a throbbing distraction. He could still taste Daniel. He licked his lips and swallowed. Daniel turned to him, and looked down into his eyes, a worried expression creasing his eyebrows and making the corners of his mouth turn down. He put his hand to Jack's cheek, caressing. Then he picked up Jack's bag and Jack's fishing rod and without a word, turned for the path that would lead them back to the palace. Jack glanced at his watch. Check in was some hours off. 

He got to his feet and brushed off his knees. He stood there a second, his hand over his boner. Walking wouldn't be very fun, but hopefully there was something wonderful ahead for him. Although, when he thought about it, he would be perfectly content if Daniel didn't feel moved to reciprocate right then. Or do anything, really. He closed his eyes, daring to think about what it would be like if he could sleep with Daniel tonight -- move into his room, fit their bodies together in the dark. Just sleeping with him again would be sheer bliss; forget any more sex.

Of course, more sex was always wonderful too....

On that thought, Jack followed Daniel up the path. 

He found Daniel in the room Daniel had been using to sleep in, already stripping. There was a tub of Vaseline on the bedroll. He smiled. Daniel looked up when he heard Jack in the doorway, and he came right over to Jack and took hold of his head and kissed him. Hard. Jack was surprised. He'd kind of expected more talking, but he wasn't about to look this kind of gift horse in the mouth. 

He put his arms around Daniel and tried to put everything he was feeling, all the yearning and relief and desire, into the kiss. 

Daniel pulled away, breathing hard. He put his hand on Jack's cheek again. He didn't say anything, but his face wasn't the blank mask Jack had seen on the beach. He looked torn, he looked turned on, he looked very much hot and bothered. He finished undressing and went back and knelt on the bedroll, putting his glasses in a safe spot near the wall. Then he turned, sitting, resting his elbow on one upraised knee, and admiringly watched Jack undress. 

It made Jack a little self-conscious, but that was a very small price to pay for getting this again, out of nowhere. 

Watching Daniel watch him, feeling Daniel's smoldering gaze like heat on his skin, made his erection come back up. It had gone down as he walked, but it was back now, interested as ever. 

As he dropped his T-shirt and his tags on the pile of clothes and boots he'd made, Daniel leaned in and reached for him. Jack knelt, wanting to be closer. The sweep of Daniel's fingers on his dick and balls was hypnotic. So, so sweet. He put a hand on Daniel's shoulder, and Daniel watched his face, watched the tiny changes that pleasure made in his expression, as his warm hand with those long, clever fingers kept exploring. It was as if Daniel wanted to get reacquainted, too.

Eventually Daniel leaned in and kissed him, and as he pulled his face back, he turned and whispered, as if he were afraid someone would overhear him, "Will you fuck me, Jack? Has it been too long for that?"

"God, no," Jack said, clutching hard. Daniel let go of him with a long, lingering slide of fingers, and turned, getting onto his knees, presenting his ass. He settled on to his elbows, his head hanging. 

"God," Jack said again, making Daniel chuckle. 

"Nothing you haven't seen before," Daniel said mildly.

"Still," Jack said, putting one hand on each of Daniel's gorgeous hips, taking a second to catch his breath. 

There was something -- something he'd thought about doing, going back to the first few times they'd been together after Daniel reappeared in his life in Colorado, going back to the days when they'd realized they were indeed comfortable switching, that it depended more on their mood and the circumstances than any clearly defined dynamic of top or bottom between them. 

There were a lot of tender and hot and raunchy things they'd done in bed together since then. But there were still a few things on Jack's list of things to try. 

Here was one. He settled himself comfortably, knees bent to the side, ignoring Daniel's inquiring grunt that meant, "Would you maybe get on with it?".

He ran admiring hands over Daniel's ass, describing big, rough circles. And then he pulled Daniel's cheeks apart and leaned in. At the first touch of his tongue, starting at the top of the cleft, before the flare of Daniel's ass, Daniel gasped. He didn't flinch, though. In fact he sagged closer to Jack in a kind of bodily amazement. 

Jack ran his tongue all the way down, not hurrying, until his face was buried in Daniel's ass and he could, with a little patience and a little assist from his fingers, actually lick Daniel's balls.

Daniel was groaning in amazement. Jack retraced the wet path he'd made, and this time he stopped midway to lick his way around the opening a couple of times, savoring the changing texture of the skin under his tongue. Daniel tasted wonderful -- tart and pungent and incredibly arousing. 

Jack licked up and down a couple more times, then changed tactics to lay kisses all around and over the opening, and above and below it in the sensitive cleft. Daniel was moaning steadily now, incredulous approving sounds. He was entirely soft and open to Jack's touch. Jack was getting high on the whole thing -- the newness, the familiarity, the full-on sensory overload of Daniel, of making love to Daniel in this way. 

He leaned in a little more and used his hands to pull the skin apart a little more firmly, and tongued the quivering opening. He ran his tongue around the edges, testing the resistance, once again enjoying the various textures of Daniel's skin here. Then he made his tongue wide and stiff and pushed. There wasn't much play, this way, but he did get to taste a bit of the inside of Daniel, and from the way Daniel's groans changed note, it was a good move. 

Without moving his face, Jack gently slid one hand down and between Daniel's legs. His cock was hanging free, bobbing with every ecstatic twitch that Jack was making Daniel feel. Palm up, Jack closed his hand around it, pushing hard with his tongue. Daniel said his name, sounding awestruck, and his tongue slid even further inside. Daniel's cock pulsed in his hand. He was so close to the edge; close to coming. 

Keeping his hand gently folded around the long shaft, Jack pulled back in a long, reluctant slide of lips and tongue. He wiped his mouth on his free wrist, and looked around for the Vaseline. He obviously had Daniel on the edge, and he wasn't going to mess around. Rimming Daniel had made him so hard he was aching. He could imagine it vividly -- how it felt to push in there, into that tight, muscular space, putting his dick where his mouth had just been. 

Still gently holding Daniel, he managed to pop the cap off the Vaseline and scoop out a bunch of it.

"Oh, thank God," he heard Daniel murmur. 

He swiped it over and around his own dick, wincing at the burst of intense pleasure, and, bracing himself against Daniel's hip, got to his knees. They wouldn't take much in this position, on the inadequate padding of the bedroll, but he knew for a fact that neither of them would last.

And they didn't.

Jack pushed in, and met with no resistance. He'd pushed Daniel to a state of arousal that he'd never felt before, as many times as they'd fucked. His ass felt less tight than soft, and so, so deep. Jack cursed, and pushed in until his hips were flush against Daniel's buttocks, and then, holding that push, he moved his hips in a ragged circle, making Daniel cry out. 

Then, biting his lower lip, he pulled out, slowly, as slowly as he could manage. Daniel's back was sheened with sweat, and his head was on his forearms. Jack pushed back in, and his conscious plan was swamped in a red rush toward orgasm. He had the presence of mind to lean in enough to be able to reach past Daniel's hip and grasp his dick, the remnants of the Vaseline on his hand making his grip a thick, hot slide. 

Just a few more strokes, just a few clumsy pulls of the head of Daniel's dick, and they were both coming, shouting, calling out, free to make noise here in this isolated place as they never were at home. Anywhere.

When Jack could think, he was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around Daniel, still buried in his ass. He was panting hard, and so was Daniel. Daniel was gripping his forearms as if he never intended to let go. 

Jack squeezed his eyes shut and hung on, relaxing by increments into the bedroll. He tried to take note of everything he could feel and sense -- Daniel's body, against him and around him, the grip of Daniel's hands on his arms, the way Daniel's nape felt under his lips, the way he smelled like soap and sweat and salt. 

It was all he wanted. This was all. There wasn't anything else. 

Eventually, they got up. Eventually they washed up, got dressed, had some dinner.

The next few days were a blur. Lots of sex, at unexpected times. Sometimes Daniel prompted it. Sometimes Jack did. Jack got his wish to sleep with Daniel again, but he'd wake in the night and Daniel wouldn't be there. Jack would lie quietly, tuning his senses until he could hear the pacing footsteps in the big hall where the Stargate was, down the corridor from the room where they slept.

Jack pulled it together for check-ins; found his colonel persona somewhere. The rule about no sex offworld had been pretty thoroughly abandoned. He tried to feel bad about it, but he just couldn't. He resolved he would worry about all that when they were back at the SGC, when this mission was behind them. 

Until then, he reveled in what Daniel was offering. Himself, his thoughts, his body, his gaze, his obvious affection. More than that, Jack didn't let himself think about. 

The time was a gift. 

The day came when the blood samples they sent back every 72 hours were clean. Jack summoned up a relieved and eager demeanor when Fraiser told him they could come back at their pleasure.

He and Daniel packed up the gear. They didn't linger, but they did trade glances now and then. Jack liked to think he saw peace and bit of regret in Daniel's eyes. 

Finally, they were ready. Daniel dialed Earth, and picked up his duffel and came to stand beside Jack as they watched the Stargate billow into life, watched the event horizon pool into the circle of the gate.

Daniel said, not looking at him, "You know we have to leave this here. When we go back."

Jack, stunned, put a hand on his arm. 

Daniel met his eyes then. His mood looked as weighted down as he was physically, with duffels and backpacks and bags. 

"Daniel, no. This was.... This was starting over, wasn't it?"

Daniel shook his head -- that gorgeous, stubborn, know-it-all head. "I can't, Jack. I could, here. But when we go back..." He looked away, obviously gathering his energy. He met Jack's anguished gaze again. "We leave it here. We have to. Don't expect anything else. I don't want to talk about it again."

And he hefted the duffel, and walked up the steps, and vanished through the gate. Jack closed his eyes.

He followed. What else could he do?


	10. The Space Between the Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place in Season 5

When they walked through the Earth gate together, coming home from Loran's planet, Jack was in a state of shock. How could Daniel pull the rug out from under him, from under them, like that?

He was a step behind Daniel on the ramp, and Hammond was there to greet them, like always, and Jack realized his own face had assumed a mask of genial receptivity. Daniel was greeting the general and giving him their update, and Jack folded his arms over his P90 and simply let him, raising his eyebrows and nodding when Hammond's glance slid to him. Daniel was perhaps babbling a bit more volubly than usual, and Jack knew what that nervousness was about, but Hammond didn't seem to see that anything was wrong. 

They went to the infirmary, and Fraiser confirmed what the round of blood tests from the previous day had shown. She told them that Loran had been transferred to the Land of Light, and according to Carter and Teal'c, he was receptive to staying there and seemed to be perking up a bit. Good news there, for a change. After the normal barrage of exams, the two of them were free to go. Daniel practically dashed out of the room as soon as he was released. 

Jack could take a hint. He knew when he was being avoided, so he dawdled to the locker room, chatting up Siler and Reynolds when he encountered them by chance in the halls, catching up on base gossip and hockey standings. The locker room was empty by the time he got there, only a dim, fading mist of humidity from the shower showing that someone had just left. On the wall, the duty roster showed Carter and Teal'c were off base. Asking around on his way out earned him the intel that Teal'c was on Chulak, and Carter was somewhere; specific location unknown. Definitely not in the Mountain. Jack hoped she was having fun. Getting a life, like he'd kept insisting she should. 

It was midmorning, local time, and when Jack got home, he was restless and unhappy. He couldn't settle. After wandering through the house twice, he got out his bicycle, changed clothes, put the bike in the back of the truck, and went to hit some trails. Afterward, sweaty and pleasantly loose and not nearly distracted enough, he stopped for Chinese and ate, alone, at a table in the restaurant. He stopped at the grocery store for perishables, and went back home. 

It was going to be a bitch to get his clock reset after ten days offworld. Usually his internal time-sense stayed oriented to Earth time, but he really needed to treat his situation like jet lag, this time, and resist the urge to nap as the afternoon shadows lengthened into evening.

He was halfway through pruning the hedge in his backyard -- which really didn't need it; his lawn crew was good and the yard work he did himself was more of a hobby than a necessity -- when he realized what he was feeling was not restlessness after all, but something spikier. What he was feeling was anger. He was angry at Daniel. Because Daniel was fucking this up, fucking up their thing, big time, for no good reason at all that Jack could see. Distancing himself and then jerking Jack around after their little vacation in a Goa'uld pleasure palace was the last straw. It was pretty fucking late in the game, Jack thought savagely, wielding the big scissor trimmer, for Daniel to have an attack of ethics about the Air Force and "don't ask, don't tell." They'd been together since day one of this mission! Furthermore, it was downright laughable for Daniel to be having an attack of conscience about the position he was putting Jack in vis a vis the frat regs, after how insubordinate he'd been and would always be. And it was totally, completely unfair for Daniel to try to regain his moral high ground after the week they'd spent fucking like minks on that planet. 

No, this all smacked of rationalizations; big time. Daniel was trying to pull back, for his own reasons, and trying to blame his inner conflict on the apparent impossibility of conducting a relationship on the down-low, as he'd put it. Quaint phrase. Jack hadn't heard that one in a while. 

Jack wasn't sure what exactly lay beneath these incredibly stupid rationalizations of Daniel's. But today, right now, he seethed with the desire to get Daniel to climb down off his high horse. There was no good reason they couldn't be together! No reason that they hadn't been able to overcome so far. No reason at all.

It was after Sha're's death that Daniel had started withdrawing from Jack, started feeling torn, started making excuses. That was a bad sign. Jack could demolish the objections Daniel had raised that were based on the Air Force regs, but if Daniel's own issues were coming into play? Jack didn't know if he was equipped for that. Much as he needed to pound some sense into that stubborn, stubborn head. 

It was pissing him off. A lot. 

He set his jaw and kept clipping, snapping the trimmer shut with excessive force. The hedge was worthy of the lawns of Versailles when he was done. Carter could measure the 90-degree angles with perfection, if she so chose. 

But his artistry in the back yard didn't make him feel any better. Neither did the hot shower, or the bratwurst, or the fact that the Blackhawks won. 

_Dammit. Daniel._

^^^^

He sat with Carter in the infirmary, for the evening shift, the day after the bizarre electrical being had been blackmailed into going back to its own pathetic planet and leaving her body behind. Alive. 

She was alive. That was ... incredible, really. He tried not to think about it. He just watched her breathe. He sat there in a hard plastic chair, looking at her wan face, and tried not to think about how he had pulled the trigger on the zat for the second shot. He thought about Teal'c, a little, too, and how Teal'c had had to kill Sha're. Back then, Teal'c had weighed the odds, in that split second, like Jack had just done, today. 

Carter was alive. 

She woke up about 1700 and had some soup. He helped her prop herself up on pillows, held the bowl for her when she started to tip it over, got the rolling table-tray fixed for her despite her eyeroll so she could feed herself after she told him he was really making her nervous. 

She said the soup tasted good; said she was ready to have some jello, maybe even a milkshake. Fraiser told her to take it easy, for tonight. Then Carter pouted at her and Fraiser relented and agreed to jello, yes, but milkshake tomorrow.

Wow. Fraiser never caved for him like that. Clearly he'd neglected their friendship. Or there was some kind of girl thing going on there. 

In any case, Jack was more than happy to head up to the commissary to get Carter some jello. He needed to stretch his legs, and more than that, he needed to stop replaying the mental tape loop of him shooting her. The cooks always had blue, once they'd figured out it was her favorite. What had started out as a joke had become a tradition. 

On the way back down, he ran into Teal'c. They sat together as Carter ate the jello, and he left them setting up the "Go" board. Teal'c had never really warmed to chess. Carter gave him a run for his money every time at "Go." 

Twenty-four hours and two milkshakes later, he was on duty when Fraiser sprung her, so he got to drive her home. She wanted cheeseburgers, which he thought was a really good sign.

Sitting at her kitchen bar in her pristine, cozy home, she asked him in a subdued voice, "Is Daniel okay?"

He was incredibly taken aback. He'd wondered for years what she suspected, and what Teal'c did, but he never went beyond wondering because he was really really comfortable not knowing. Safer if they never talked about it. 

"Why do you ask?" he managed to say. Deflection. Habit. He sipped a slug of his Coke. 

She was making a circle in her ketchup with a french fry. She sighed. "He's just, well, withdrawn. I'm starting to seriously worry about him. The two of you have always been such good friends..." She frowned, and popped the fry into her mouth. It might have been a ploy to buy some time to let her weigh her words, because she was walking a line. He realized he didn't have a clue about Carter's motivations here. She'd figured out the zatarc detector, sure, but how far did her inferences go, about how he felt about the team, and about Daniel in particular? Finally she met his eyes and sighed. "I just figured you'd know better than I would how he was doing."

"To be honest, I'm not sure." She was watching him carefully. He set down his half-devoured burger and chose his words just as carefully. "You know how hard Sha're's death hit him. I think he started questioning his motivations for being on the team, after that. And then: The way he gave up Shifu as a baby, twice, and then the whole way things went down when we met Shifu again.... I think all that's been really hard on him."

That was a lot of truth, right there. And a whole lot of sentences. Did he miss talking to Daniel that much? He winced, but Carter was nodding thoughtfully. She had another bite of her burger, and so he did too. She said, "All that was devastating, I know. Had to be. He didn't say too much to me about Shifu, but... He's like me -- he works too hard. He uses that as a distraction, from everything. We're all so caught up in the program, you know? It's so critical, it's easy to think about nothing but the mission. The work. The science. Well, you know..." She waved a hand, and her meaning was clear. She thought about the science. Daniel thought about the anthropology stuff, the languages stuff. Which was science, too. In a way. Maybe not by Carter's standards, but it counted. And Jack knew she appreciated Daniel's quick intelligence, and valued his friendship. She went on, "But we're all human. Well, Teal'c, strictly speaking--"

He chuckled and she caught his eye and smiled. "I know how out of balance I can get, and I recognize how you all keep reminding me of that. I worry about Daniel in the same way."

"Yeah," Jack said. He'd run out of words. Any deeper, and he'd start telling her things she really was better off not knowing. 

She sighed. "Well, maybe we can all help him see how important he is. To the program. And to us." She met his eyes then, and held his gaze long enough that he wondered what she was thinking. 

He returned his attention to his food, and to his relief, she let the subject drop. 

It was just a few weeks later that he had occasion to pull out his "Get a life, Carter" speech again, but of course she was right and everyone else was wrong about what was going on. He should be used to that by now, he supposed. Carter was almost never wrong about anything. There really was an alien stalking her, and it freaked Daniel's shit when it turned out to be another being like Oma. They learned a bit more about what the glowy folks could do, fomented a massive inter-service confrontation that forced Hammond to spend some quality time on the red phone, and came up with ever more new and creative lies for the Springs police. 

But they got through it. 

They got through some more missions. Saved the earth, saved the Tok'ra, failed to save the Tok'ra, sort of saved Sarah Gardner, again, sort of not. 

Daniel maintained a relentlessly cheerful distance. Carter and Teal'c had taken to looking accusingly at Jack every now and then. He shrugged and tried to play dumb. It didn't work very well. 

After their last-second save when some Goa'uld tried to heave an asteroid at Earth, he stood in the conference room door, trying unobtrusively to block Daniel's path after the debriefing. They'd done the meeting without Carter, whom Jack had hustled off to the infirmary over her protests. It was quite a jolt she'd taken from the electrical system of the al-kesh, even though she'd shrugged it off. And that time she was taken over by an alien electrical being still worried him. 

He stood there, but Daniel was studiously avoiding his gaze, even though he had to know Jack hadn't left. He was collecting the papers and printouts he'd spread on the table; handwritten stuff plus printouts of screen grabs from the display of the al-kesh. He'd had to stand in for Carter's position during much of the debrief, with a bunch of input from Teal'c, who was the expert on the navigation and front-end systems of their ship. Jack had talked about the decision-making sequence. The other two had provided the reasons and the background. 

Finally Daniel had all his papers collected into a pile. He couldn't stall any longer. He stood up, still not meeting Jack's gaze.

"Good job, out there," Jack said.

"Yeah," Daniel said, drawing out the syllable and sounding entirely unconvinced. The klaxon blared, announcing what had to be the last group returning from the Alpha Site. Daniel flinched. Then he collected himself. The mission had been a complete success, luck and expertise both on their side, but Daniel didn't look very happy about it. Head down, he took a breath and made for the door. Where Jack was still standing. Daniel wouldn't look up. But he said, "Excuse me."

Jack had so many things he wanted to say. Daniel wouldn't come over, wouldn't come to team nights, wouldn't return his calls. Work was the only place they could connect, any more. It was intolerable.

"Daniel," Jack said. "Don't do this."

Daniel looked up, then. He was frowning. "Here? Really?"

"We just saved the world. Again. Let's go celebrate."

"You know? No. Thank you. Please. Excuse me."

Jack put his hands against the door jambs, one on either side, making a barrier. "Carter and Teal'c have started glaring at me. They think something's wrong with us, and they're right. And they obviously think it's my fault."

"Oh, they're glaring at me too," Daniel said. He appeared to be studying his knuckles. 

"Daniel," Jack tried again. "I don't know what--"

The interruption was swift and furious, for all it was low volume. "Why was I on that last mission, Jack? What did I contribute? Exactly nothing."

"That's not true. You were the one who brought up the hyperdrive thing that led to plan 3."

"No, Sam extrapolated from my desperate brainstorming about the alien nature of the metal and the fact that the Goa'uld had to have brought the asteroid here with a hatak."

"Key word here -- brainstorm! Your contribution was essential. Like always."

"Really, Jack? You don't think Sam would have figured that out within seconds of us thinking about the implications of how the Goa'uld, whoever it was, had planned the attack?"

"You did it together! The two of you! The science twins! You're SG-1, Daniel. You belong with us. We need you.... I need you."

Daniel shook his head. "I was excess baggage on this mission and you know it. And I'm beginning to think--"

He bit off his words and shook his head. Jack reached out, reached for Daniel's shoulder, and damn it if the cowardly bastard didn't turn tail and run, striding quickly out the other door, escaping through Hammond's empty office and into the far hallway.

"Dammit, Daniel," Jack breathed, staring after him. 

Jack vowed to pin him down. Reassure him. Demand to know what was up. And soon. 

But then Teal'c got infatuated with a new and charismatic Jaffa leader, which was weird, and exhausting, and eventually an incredible downer. Days went by. Jack let Daniel get away with not having the conversation.

And then, they went to Kelowna. 

^^^^

It was one of the hardest things Jack had ever done, saying goodbye to Daniel in that glowy in-between world. It made his skin crawl, being there and not there, seeing Daniel, and Oma, being pulled into their alternate reality. Daniel was talking to him, upright and handsome and crying. Daniel was lying on the gurney; silent, burning to death from the inside out.

It was shocking, and horrible, and he felt he'd been beaten up or maybe hit over the head with something heavy. 

The only thing that allowed him to stand there, in that weird not-gateroom that was also Daniel's infirmary room, and have those surreal conversations, was the clear understanding that Daniel wanted this. That Daniel was truly done with this life, with the mission, with everything. Daniel wanted them to let him go. 

He couldn't fight that, when Daniel turned those beseeching eyes on him. Something about the half-ascended dream state that Oma and Daniel had pulled him in to made all the emotions so naked, so clear.

Daniel loved him. And Daniel wanted, more than anything, to let go. 

Jack wanted otherwise. His entire soul was saying "No." 

But it wasn't about him, now, was it?

He'd seen how Daniel was suffering and dying. He'd seen the fear in Jacob's eyes when he stepped up to the gurney and tried to fix a disintegrating body. 

Jack didn't want to Daniel to die. But he didn't want him to suffer, either. 

Definitely one of the hardest things he'd ever done. 

He was sitting in his dusty office, a couple of hours after he'd watched Daniel walk through the imaginary gate, when his phone rang. He watched it for a few seconds and figured he'd better pick up. Under the circumstances. Work, and all. 

"O'Neill."

It was Harriman. "General Hammond is asking SG-1 to report to the conference room, sir." He sounded apologetic.

"On my way," Jack said. 

Everyone in the room, and it was just the three of them and Hammond, looked like he felt. Carter had obviously been crying. Jack suppressed a sudden urge to put a hand on her shoulder. He vaguely wondered where Jacob had gotten to. Had he left already? That would be abrupt. 

"Thank you for coming," Hammond said, formally. He was seated at the head of the table in his usual spot. Were the lights kind of dim? Jack's gaze strayed to the empty chair next to Teal'c that would have been Daniel's. "Under the circumstances, I asked HR to send me Doctor Jackson's personal file. As Colonel O'Neill is listed as his next of kin, I wanted to inquire--"

"No funeral, sir," Jack blurted. "No. No service."

_There's nothing to bury. Or burn. There's ... nothing._

He realize he was on his feet. His hands were clenched into fists. He relaxed them with an effort and smoothed his shirt front. 

"Colonel--" Hammond was saying.

"No, sir," he repeated, just standing there. The table top was very smooth. A little reflective. 

"It's your call," Hammond said, his voice gentle. Somehow, that enraged Jack.

"Yes," he hissed. "It is." He left the room. He could feel them staring after him.

^^^^

He sleepwalked through the next few days. Oh, he went to the Mountain. He couldn't stay home, so he went to work. Caught up on paperwork. Talked to people and they talked back. He answered questions, he provided speculation, he ate, he slept. A little. 

But it was just like the times he'd lost other dear ones -- too many memories crowded him, flooded him. He avoided Teal'c and Carter. He avoided Hammond and Fraiser, too, as much as he could.

One long night, at home, he sat there staring, his hand on the phone, realizing that he'd been seconds from dialing Sara's old number. He'd kept up; he knew where she was, but their old number had momentarily seemed like something that would work. 

He shook his head at that, and went for a walk. It was warm out. Too warm. It didn't seem to touch him. He was in a cold fog. Work was the only thing that had a hold on him. Work had called him back to life, in a way, after Charlie's death, and work was what he clung to now. 

Carter was pissed at him, he noted from a great distance. Teal'c, on the other hand, shadowed him. Teal'c silently showed up at his side at the range, in the gym, in the commissary. He knew better than to offer meditation or any crazy shit like that, and he rarely said a word, but he was just... there. 

Teal'c knew something about loss. About bearing loss.

And Carter did too -- she'd lost her mother, after all. But she wanted him to feel things, to express things. She couldn't know that if he did, he wouldn't stop. It would be like opening a vein, like bleeding out, like suicide. He wouldn't let himself slide down that slope again to that black despair that had led to a suicide mission, had led to the end of his marriage. He wouldn't open those floodgates that led to nothingness. 

All he could do was go on. So he went on.

The mission to the Asgard's cloning lab was too soon, probably. He knew he wasn't at his best, but he jumped at the chance to do something. Anything. To not sit around, wondering. Thinking. Dreaming. 

Afterward, victory having been snatched from the jaws of defeat, once again, there was Teal'c again, shadowing him in the locker room, hinting so broadly that he had not been away from the Mountain in some time. 

Jack could take a hint.

They would go to dinner. Think about what was next. This new threat from Anubis, the rescue of Thor, the change in the balance of power. It was tactical stuff. It was important.

Then they ran into Hammond and Carter in the lower lobby, and something weird happened. He felt it, and Carter did too. A cold breeze, sweet as mountain air, gentle as a caress. It made him smile. It buoyed him.

Which was strange, since Daniel was still gone. But...

He was still smiling when Carter pulled into O'Malley's. They had agreed to risk it, to see what would happen. Maybe they were all feeling lucky. Saving the world will do that to you.

They had a booth, this time. Not a table for four. Teal'c was opposite them; he was the biggest. Jack scrunched his shoulders against the corner made by the booth and the wall, just to keep both their faces in sight. Habit. 

"If Daniel were here, we'd have had to get a table," Carter said, and Jack raised his eyebrows because it was so close to what he had been refusing to think.

The waitress took their drink orders, and then Teal'c, as usual, got right to the point. He'd put his fedora on the seat beside him, but he was wearing a black, thin watch cap pulled low on his forehead. Tasteful. 

"On our way to Adara II, Major Carter told me she was of the opinion that we should perform the ritual for the dead for Daniel Jackson, but I told her it would be inappropriate, because he is not dead, but simply ascended to a higher plane of existence."

"So?" Jack said. He couldn't tell, in the moment, if he was feeling more like a cocky smartass or more like he'd better stick to monosyllables to keep from blurting out a bunch of needy, pointless shit. Make a note: Only one beer tonight, bucko. 

He studied Teal'c's calm face, remembering how they'd been in that hatak holding cell together, unarmed. Again.

A better memory -- how T. had taken down three Jaffa guards and stolen their weapons by the time Jack had taken down one and turned around. 

Carter shook her head at his monosyllable, but she sipped her water and folded her hands and took him on. "I know we're all grieving in our own way, but I just thought it would be good to mark his leaving us somehow."

"Well, I don't," Jack said. 

Mercifully, the waitress came back to take their orders. They all -- big surprise -- ordered steak. 

After the minor bustle of the menus being taken away and the fragmentary agreement on the sampler appetizer, Carter pinned him with her defiant blue stare again. It always took a lot for her to challenge him. This must be really important to her. He found himself twisting his napkin in his lap and made himself stop. 

"So you are dead set--" she winced. "You are absolutely against the idea of any kind of memorial service or funeral."

"I don't think Daniel is dead, Carter."

She inhaled and shook her head. "With respect, that's not the point, sir. The point is we need to have some closure. Some, some memorial of him, something that lets us ... that shows us ... how to go on."

How could he explain to her that closure was the last thing he wanted? He didn't want closure. He wanted to think that Daniel wasn't dead; needed to think that. He closed his eyes.

Teal'c rescued him. "Major Carter. O'Neill. Did either of you feel a sudden cold breeze, just as we were parting ways with General Hammond this evening?"

Carter sat up straight. "Yes, I did. I thought I was imagining things."

Jack frowned at Teal'c. He'd seen Carter's bangs fluff, heard their quip about a malfunctioning air vent. Then the breeze had hit him, and somehow in that moment, he'd known. It wasn't just a gust from the air conditioning. It was Daniel, saying hi. The glowy stealth equivalent of that ridiculous little waist-high wave he used to give when they were about to be in trouble. 

Jack smiled. Or tried to. They were both looking at him. 

"What?" he demanded. But he could tell from their faces that they'd seen him smile. 

At that moment the waitress came back with their drinks -- club soda for Teal'c, beer for Carter and him. 

When she left, Carter got that challenging look in her eye again. She caught Teal'c's eye, and he nodded. 

She steeled herself and lifted her glass. 

"A toast. To our..." she choked up, and closed her eyes. Jack felt his own throat tighten in response.

_I can't take it, Carter. Don't. Just…_

Clearly, she didn't have telepathy. 

She had no adjectives. Which Jack felt was all too fitting. "To Daniel," she said, and when her eyes opened, they were swimming. " 'In sunshine, or in shadow.' "

"To Daniel Jackson."

_"But come ye back, when summer's in the meadow.... or when the valley's hushed and white with snow…"_

Jack managed to speak. His voice didn't break. "To Daniel."

It wasn't closure, dammit. It wasn't. But the beer went down crisp and cold, and he could close his eyes, and behind them, he could see Daniel's blue eyes, and his surprised smile.


	11. "All or Nothing at All"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in season 7. Thanks to JD Junkie for hand holding and pacing advice. Sid, I wish I had finished this in time for you to read it.

_all or nothing at all_  
half a loaf never appealed to me  
if your heart never could yield to me  
then i'd rather have nothing at all 

^^^^

_"Colonel... We found something you might want to see."_

Reynolds. Always the master of understatement. And his simple little sentence was playing on a tape loop in Jack's head tonight.

He'd come to the commissary for some coffee after, unbelievably, putting Doctor Daniel Jackson to bed in a VIP suite. 

They'd brought Daniel back from Vis Uban, and then while Janet was doing her bit, Jack had wrangled some airmen to quickly unpack whatever boxes of Daniel's were at the top of the stack in the storeroom up on 15. The photos of Sha're and a teenaged Daniel on a camel had been in his own office drawer. Where he'd looked at them. Sometimes. When he couldn't stop himself from twisting the knife.

It had been a long, long year. 

But, Daniel. 

Daniel was here. Here, in the mountain. Right now. 

Jack sipped some coffee and shook his head, as if that could clear it. 

_..."something you might want to see."_

Jack's world had shifted, slid, crashed, from that moment. He'd been numb at first. Floundering for words. And now? He was... feeling something. Not sure what. Too soon to say. 

Daniel.

It was Daniel. Not an annoyingly preachy ascended vision of Daniel, who had come to him in prison to try to convince him that becoming one of _them_ was preferable to death.

Not a Daniel who manifested as cool breezes and gut-wrenching dreams.

And, strangest of all, not the Daniel he had said goodbye to in an imaginary gateroom, a year and some change ago. 

A real Daniel. An ... embodied Daniel. 

It had to be him; Jack couldn't think of anything else that was even remotely possible. Bolstering Jack against both disbelief and the crashing return of hope and emotion, Carter had agreed with that theory. It had to be their actual Daniel, sent back like some sort of fallen angel. As he'd tried to tell Daniel in his tent on the planet. Fat lot of good that did at the time. Even though Jack had actually said "higher plane of existence" and not "angel."

But whatever. Some strange combination of Daniel's own instincts, and his and Carter's blandishments, had persuaded the guy to come with them. To come home. 

And here was Jack, drinking cooling coffee, in the familiar drabness of the commissary, totally whacked out and confused. 

He'd waved Teal'c off when he'd come to Jack's table to commiserate. The big guy had looked about as stunned as Jack felt. It was subtle, but it was clear to Jack. He'd accepted that Jack didn't want company, and then paused and said he felt the futile need for kel'no'reem, which was something Jack hadn't heard him talk about in ... forever. 

Yeah. This was huge. 

Jack closed his eyes. He didn't want to remember the time Daniel had visited him in Ba'al's prison, but he didn't want to think about Daniel the avenger, forcing them into a confrontation with Anubis on Abydos either. Or the aftermath of that. 

He wanted, instead, to think about the real Daniel, the recent Daniel. Dressed in blue robes that brought out the blue of his eyes, puzzled and concerned with no glasses to shield them from the world. The real Daniel who had argued with him, low-voiced and earnest, in that tent. He wanted to believe in this. To hold on to it. Because he wanted Daniel back more than he wanted air to breathe. 

Jesus. What now? 

He drained his cup, and got up and headed for the base's gym. He couldn't make himself leave the mountain; not with Daniel in it. Not even as late as it was. But he wasn't a bit sleepy. He knew he couldn't settle to his ever-present paperwork. He had to do something physical, or explode. Teal'c could meditate. Carter was probably in her lab. And Jack could lift weights, maybe play raquetball with someone from the second shift when they went off duty in a couple of hours. Coburn was the OIC tonight in Hammond's absence and he was always good for a game. 

Christ. Daniel was back. 

^^^^^

When Jack appeared in the commissary the next morning, having grabbed a few hours of sleep in one of the bunk rooms, Carter was already there. Her hair was damp, and she had a plate of breakfast in front of her. He chuckled.

"Let me guess," he said, sitting down across from her with his own tray. "You stayed here last night."

She looked guilty, but immediately bridled. "I got plenty of sleep and we're on stand-down anyway, because of Daniel. And furthermore," she added, her eyes getting wide, as the penny dropped, "isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?"

"Did I say I blamed you? Or that I was getting ready to blame you?"

"No, but you can't deny that you have never given up on telling me to 'get a life', whatever that means in your world. Sir." And she smiled, despite the dark circles under her eyes. He smiled back. It was fun to see her challenge him. He picked up his fork and pointed it at her.

"Carter, believe me, I have no trouble understanding that it would be hard to leave, knowing that Daniel, in the flesh, was just a few doors down."

"All right, then," she said, pacified, and started eating again. 

Jack had a fleeting moment of wondering if he'd just outed himself, or if Carter had known about him and Daniel all along, or if their conversation was simply a sign of the level of weirdness they both were experiencing. Then Jack caught sight of Teal'c and Jonas going through the line. He didn't have to wave; he knew they would join him and Carter. He chuckled again, thinking that it was a really, really odd reunion now. All five of them, staying in the mountain last night. He really needed to get ahold of himself. 

"So," he said, when Teal'c and Jonas were in earshot. "I'm thinking field trip. Get Daniel out of here, show him around the city a little bit. Show him the surface of his home planet."

"I think that's a great idea," Jonas said. 

"After breakfast I'll go spring the plan on him," Jack said. Was he crazy? Maybe. Probably. 

^^^^^

Jack drove his truck, with Teal'c next to him and Jonas crammed into the jumpseat in the back, but Jonas didn't complain. They were following Daniel's red Jeep, with Carter at the wheel.

After breakfast, Carter had zoomed out of the mountain and to her house, where she'd stowed Daniel's Jeep all this time. She'd been the one to volunteer to keep it, to tinker with it and drive it every now and then, after their "no closure, no funeral" dinner at O'Malley's. Jack had been so touched, even though he didn't say so and in point of fact had acted very dubious and disapproving about the entire enterprise. He was pretty sure Carter had seen through his frowns. Yes, it needed to be done and it was something he could have done, but for him it would have been painful. Carter had insisted that for her, it would be a pleasure. He'd given in. It made her happy. 

So, this morning she'd driven back to the mountain in record time in the Jeep, meeting the other four in the parking lot, by Jack's truck. 

She convo'd with Jack, reading the options as if reading his mind. "Downtown, or Manitou Springs, or Garden of the Gods?" she asked.

"Garden first," Jack ruled. "Then downtown. It'll be lunchtime by then."

She smiled, and moved to herd Daniel into the passenger seat of his own vehicle.

Jack had another moment of flashback, thinking about the time that half the Springs police force plus a bunch of undercover people from the Mountain had found Marchello, in Daniel's body, downtown. And that wasn't anywhere close to the weirdest thing that had happened to them, through the years.

Following Carter to the park, he wondered what the day would bring. 

^^^^^

It was unplanned -- accidental, even -- but after a day spent futzing around outdoors, with Jonas providing most of the commentary, and Teal'c and Carter being weirdly positive and supportive, they'd ended up back at Jack's house. He'd put Carter and Jonas in charge of ordering takeout, and they'd ended up with one big pizza from the place down the hill and one incredibly large spread of Indian food. Weird choices. But he couldn't complain.

Teal'c was patiently re-explaining, in front of the fire Jack had built, in order to do something, anything with his hands while they waited for the two deliveries, the game of Senet to Daniel, and it just about broke Jack's heart to watch Daniel slowly and painfully ask questions, try to catch on, to a game that he and Teal'c had been playing since the first week Teal'c had been with them, and which, according to Daniel 1.0, he himself had played with his parents since he'd been in diapers.

That had been a good memory for Daniel. Now it was gone.

Like everything else.

_No, goddammit, there will be no pity party,_ Jack reminded himself through clenched teeth, after dinner, as he took himself into the kitchen to rinse the empties and put them in the recycling, and help Jonas break down the boxes and the empty containers. 

_Daniel's back. He's here. Nothing else matters._

"How are you doing, sir," Jonas, risking much, dared to ask him, as they stood there by the sink, together, reluctant but making it work, like always.

"Good." Jack had to push out the word, force it. "I'm good. I'm amazed he's back. Never in my wildest nightmares, you know?"

"Yeah," Jonas said, half word, half sigh, and kept cleaning.

Later, Carter took Jonas and Teal'c back to the mountain in Daniel's Jeep, simply pushing the two of them out the door like some kind of mother hen, not asking, just nudging -- Teal'c cooperative, Jonas reluctant. Like there was something, anything, Jonas could do. Not.

Daniel stood by the dying fire with a glass of water, the only sort of drink he had wanted all night.

"So," he said. "Just you and me, huh?" and he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose in a gesture that was heartbreakingly familiar and heartbreakingly empty, and Jack said with false cheer, "Just you and me, like old times."

And Daniel chuckled like he knew what that meant, and Jack swallowed his heart and his hope and went down the hallway to make up the naked bed in the spare room.

So that was one day, and one night.

The next few were immensely strange. SG-1 was on stand-down. Hammond gave them no explanation, but Jack figured the general was thinking that they would all be way too distracted to go on missions quite yet. 

Most nights, Jack managed to make himself go home. Daniel seemed to spend a lot of time reading old mission reports and talking with Jonas. But he didn't seem to remember much of anything. Jack would eavesdrop, sometimes, just outside the door to Jonas' lab. He couldn't help himself. 

He and the team and Daniel would eat meals together, or take short field trips. Teal'c wanted to show Daniel the places he used to live, thinking that would possibly shake loose some memories. The exact apartments were now occupied, but the team looked at the buildings, walked around the neighborhoods, and visited the stores and coffee shops Daniel used to like. He acted like a puzzled but appreciative tourist. It made Jack grit his teeth.

One night, after they'd dropped Daniel off at the mountain, Jack took Carter home, and she paused, standing in the street with her hand on the door handle of the truck, and said, "Sir? What if this is it? What if he never remembers us? Remembers who he is?"

"Don't go there, Carter," he barked, and left her there looking worried in his rear view mirror. 

But of course he couldn't help thinking the same thing. 

It was maddening -- to see this guy who looked like Daniel, who spoke like Daniel, with a few weird quirks (Daniel had never been this polite, not even at first), and to know so much was missing. 

After a night of tossing and turning and unpleasant broken-up dreams, Jack hit the commissary quite early, for breakfast and coffee, to find Daniel already there, a table of one, files and books spread around him. He had a rumpled, up-all-night look that Jack recognized.

Jack filled a tray and sat down across from him. Daniel glanced up and shuffled a couple of books and his pushed-aside, empty plate out of the way to make room. 

"Burning the midnight oil again, Doc?" Jack said, sipping his coffee. 

Daniel acquired a thinking look for a moment, but then apparently his databanks kicked in and he interpreted the metaphor. At least Jack assumed that was what he was doing. Daniel smiled hesitantly and said, "Yes, I guess I did stay up all night. It's hard to remember what time it is, away from the outside world. And there's so much to catch up on." He gestured, taking in all the files and material spread on the table. 

Jack took a closer look. "Going back to the early missions, are we?" 

"Yes. You -- we -- had so much to learn! So many narrow escapes. Teal'c was really invaluable then, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, he was our go-to guy for the cultural stuff. Still is. And, well, you were too, of course."

Daniel's face closed down at that, and he adjusted his glasses. "Yes, well. I do have a question for you. Did we meet when I was hired to do the translating here, on the original cover stone from Giza? Is that when I met you for the first time?"

Jack looked up sharply, meeting Daniel's earnest eyes, and something in his expression must have slipped, because Daniel flinched and looked down. 

Jack found he was gripping the sides of his chair. He relaxed his hands and took a deliberate breath. 

"You tell me," he said, echoing what he'd said that first night Daniel had come back to them, when Daniel had asked him about the photo of Sha're. 

Daniel shook his head. He spoke softly, still looking down at the files in front of him. "I just... I have these, I guess, impressions, sometimes. Nothing pings me, so far, in what the files say about meeting Sam, or Teal'c, or Jonas" --a slight wince, fleeting enough that only Jack probably would have seen it-- "but, when I read about those first attempts at translation, how Dr. Langford tried to question your involvement in the program with General West.... I just get this feeling that it's not the beginning of the story. That there's something... before that."

He looked up then, and Jack tried to soften his expression. Daniel went on, pained and earnest, "I'm sorry. I know that's vague. Also. Have I done something to offend you? Stepped on some kind of protocol the last few days? Because it seems like you're ticked off at me about something and I'm honestly completely puzzled about what it is."

He spoke very fast. His hands were in his lap. 

Jack made himself take a few bites of his breakfast, letting the question hang in the air between them. He had no idea what to say. "I'm just a grouchy person," he finally said, putting down his fork. "Ask Carter. She'll tell you."

Daniel stared at him, clearly unhappy with that answer. After a moment he asked a question about Chulak, to which Jack was able to give a coherent answer, and the conversation struggled on.

Jack didn't know if he'd dodged a bullet or missed an opportunity.

It was only a couple of days later that Daniel elbowed his way into the briefing about the tablet, and Carter came up with her bizarre plan, Tok'ra inspired, to attack Anubis' superweapon, which cast Jack in the Luke Skywalker role, which, yeah, that was cool, if suicidal, and then it all got rather relentless.

Which actually was a relief.

Daniel, in the locker room as they geared up, claimed he remembered... things.

Jack really wasn't buying it. He hadn't seen any evidence. Was Daniel trying to convince the team? Or convince himself? Was everything he was claiming as memories really only stuff he'd read in old mission reports? 

Jack didn't feel he had arrived in the present moment until he was standing in the bunker on Kelowna, of accursed memory, and clicking the purple radio device thingy, hoping for the best, and hello! There was Daniel. Again. Up on that ship. 

He sounded more like himself. He was as terse and acerbic as ever, maybe even more than ever, throwing obfuscation and sarcasm Jack's way even as he evaded mortal peril, moment by moment.

Jack could have kissed him. 

Of course it got worse before it got better.

^^^^

Jonas was gone, and the gate was its normal silent imposing self, and there was Daniel, contemplating infinity and asking Jack stupid questions.

Yeah, we get paid for this. 

Business as usual indeed. 

But there was dinner ahead, dinner with the team, the old team, the real team, and Jack let himself be happy, just for a moment. So happy.

He had a bone to chew on, too. He'd heard Daniel tell Quinn that Daniel was actually getting his memories back. And right before the mission, Daniel had claimed to remember Charlie's story, claimed to remember the first trip to Abydos. Was he lying? Was he serious? 

If he was serious, how many memories was that?

And of what? 

Sure, he'd remembered a bunch of _skills_, and apparently a bunch of languages, which, seeing as how Daniel's knowledge of Ancient had been key to the whole mission, was great.

But what did he mean by telling Jack that he remembered enough? 

All during dinner, Jack was wary, watching Daniel. That didn't seem to strike anyone as unusual; Daniel, for the moment, was the center of attention for all of them. They still weren't used to him being back. How could they be? 

But Jack was listening keenly to everything Daniel said, trying to decide if Daniel remembered stuff or not. If Daniel was trying to convince himself as well as them. But the conversation was mostly about the mission they'd just been on, about Jonas, and about some movies that Teal'c had made Daniel watch recently. Not much to go on. And Jack didn't want to push his luck; not yet. 

Because if Daniel had really remembered everything? Jack would know. 

After dinner Daniel left with Carter, who'd offered to take both him and T. back to the mountain. She'd seemed tentative, as if she was treading on uncertain ground. Which she was, but Daniel didn't seem to realize it, and Jack wasn't going to say a thing. When the house was quiet again, Jack sat there, in front of the dying flames, finishing a warming beer, just pondering. Daniel was back. Anubis was on the run. They had a breathing space. Daniel was maybe remembering stuff. 

Life was good.

^^^^

They were all in the gym, toward the end of their stand-down after the mission. They'd had the meetings with Hammond and everyone had agreed the old SG-1 was back in business. 

Teal'c had started it, this new routine of doing some weightlifting together, and Jack had been the last to join in, but since Daniel had come back it had become kind of a thing no one wanted to miss. 

Carter, always methodical, had started logging Daniel's reps and weight, and from what they could all tell, the Ancients had sent him back a bit more buffed than he'd been before. Or, Daniel pointed out, maybe it was all the weeks of hauling water and chopping wood he'd done with the people of Vis Uban.

Daniel was doing curls and Jack was a few feet away, doing bench presses, when Jack heard Daniel start talking about getting out of the mountain, now that he'd been cleared to be on the team again. Maybe look for a place of his own. 

"Stay with me," Jack offered, not looking to see their reactions. Truth to tell, he was a little afraid to see how they all would react -- all of them, not just Daniel.

"Move in with you?" Daniel said, sounding surprised.

"Sure," Jack said, and he racked his bar with an unnecessarily loud "clang" and sat up. He adjusted his gloves. Finally he dared to look up. They were all still, frozen, looking at him in varying degrees of astonishment.

Jack realized he had some pent-up feelings about this. He flashed on a memory; he and Daniel talking, after Sha're's death. He should've had Daniel move in with him the night Daniel came back from Abydos the first time. So here was another chance.

Apparently Jack was all about the second chances, now.

Their expressions told him elaboration was called for. "You can stay, or you can use it as a base to house-hunt. Whatever you like. And it's probably a good time to try to get permission for Teal'c to move out, too. Have to keep nudging at that every few months."

"My quarters at the SGC are sufficient for my needs," Teal'c said, like he always did.

"Sure, they are, but it would be nicer to get you a place of your own. Outdoors."

Hammond would never discuss it much with Jack, when he said "no," and Jack still wasn't sure if the decision was Hammond's or if someone higher up was pulling strings. But he kept asking. 

"Outdoors," Daniel said, like the idea had just occurred to him, and he started his reps again.

Carter was smiling.

Jack stood up and took a plate off each end of his barbell and lay back down for his second set. 

"All right, then," he said. 

^^^^

Moving day was very brief. Daniel didn't want to dig into all his stored possessions and furniture yet, and so the things he wanted to bring with him to Jack's house were surprisingly few in number. He had hinted that he was looking at it as a base from which to house-hunt, but Jack wasn't sure if he was trying not to impose, or what. Daniel did talk a lot about how great it was to get out from under the mountain, so maybe it was simple claustrophobia that had made him accept Jack's proposal. Daniel and Carter had unpacked a bunch of his clothes, which filled a duffel. Barely. And of course there were more books than anything else. Jack had anticipated that, and cleared out the bookcase in the back bedroom. It was mostly old National Geo's in there anyway. He put them in milk crates in the garage until he could decide what to do with them permanently. Maybe another bookcase project was in his future. 

So Daniel arrived, Daniel and his boxes, and after some pizza, Jack broke out a beer, and Daniel declined one. Jack sat on the sofa and fiddled with the chess pieces, watching Daniel walk around the room, and around the dining room, getting reacquainted with the house. He spent a long time looking at the medals and photos over the mantel, after asking Jack about the photos of Mars.

Finally he said, "I still keep getting this feeling that you and I met before the Stargate program."

Jack put down the rook he was holding and took a swallow of beer. What in the hell did he say to that? He tracked Daniel around the room, tracked his fidgeting, his unease. He said, "Okay. Now I know you are not telling the truth about getting all your memories back. Because I'm going to go ahead and say that yes, we met before the program. Once. By chance. Years ago."

"I knew it," Daniel said, turning to him, eyes shining. 

Jack realized he was gripping his beer much tighter than necessary. This was hard, this tightrope Daniel had put him on. There was no way he was telling Daniel this stuff tonight. No fucking way. He stood up. "You don't get it. How we met isn't the point at all. Sure, you had a feeling. But more important is, you're holding out on us. You really don't remember. You're just reading a lot of mission reports."

"No, I do remember some things. I really do," Daniel came toward him, down the stairs from the entry, looking so... young. Intense. It made Jack step back a pace and try to remember to breathe. "I've remembered a great deal about Abydos, and about Sha're. And about certain missions. Almost nothing about the time I was ascended, however. Which is unsettling."

Right in front of Jack, Daniel began to pace. Back and forth. Jack watched him. And Jack harrumphed, unconvinced. His heart was beating fast. "You can bullshit all you want, Daniel. But I'm not going to push it. Fraiser said you should take your time, that things would come back at their own pace."

Now Daniel was leaning one hand against stone mantel, looking down. His body was tense. "I can't just sit around and wait. I may never become the person I was before, but I have to pull my weight. The stuff I know is mission-critical sometimes. Like the Ancient dialect we needed to crack Anubis' ship codes."

Jack was so astonished and delighted to heard Daniel say that he felt valuable to the program that he almost dropped his beer. This was so unlike the Daniel who had left them -- the Daniel who had somehow become convinced that he was extra baggage, after the meteor thing. 

"You're pulling your weight so far. I wouldn't worry about it."

Daniel nodded, but he looked unconvinced. 

"Listen," Jack went on. "Don't try to paper over stuff you don't know. Don't bullshit me. If you don't remember, we can work around that. But don't tap dance too much. We need you to be honest."

Daniel stood there, poised, as if about to run. He was breathing hard. Jack sat down again, ready to wait him out. When Daniel finally spoke, the surprise, the release from tension, was intense for Jack. He put down his beer, linked his fingers, elbows on his knees, and leaned forward, as if willing the words out of Daniel by the sheer force of his attention.

"It's such a jumble," Daniel said quietly, looking down. He obviously was admitting something. Confessing. "What I've learned from the files, what I have experienced since I've been with you all, what I actually remember. And I dream, Jack." He turned to Jack, just his head, and his gaze was intense. "I dream things that might be true memories or things I learned from the files, or that might be pure wish fulfillment. I just..." he shook his head. He folded his arms and went slowly past Jack, up to the kitchen, and after a long patient while, he returned with a steaming mug of coffee. He sat down slowly in an armchair. He sighed. Jack leaned back. 

"What's this about a new crop of pilots for the planes?" he said, and Jack knew a deflection when he heard one.

So instead of more confessions, they talked about the 302 program, rehashing Carter's gossip, and then they watched a movie in the basement, and then they went to bed. 

It was nice to have Daniel there. Yeah.

For the moment, it was enough. More than enough.

^^^^

Although Daniel brought his Jeep over from Carter's and parked it in the wide part of the driveway, they fell into a habit of riding in together nearly every morning, in Jack's truck. 

It was oddly domestic. Oddly comforting. It was a daily routine Jack got used to all too quickly -- having Daniel with him, every day and every night. 

Jack even found himself getting snarky when Daniel would discuss his house search. Jack didn't want to go with him to see the houses he was considering. When he realized why, he sucked it up and made himself tag along if Daniel seemed to want company. They discussed snow routes and convenience to the mountain. Shopping and amenities. Prices and resale value. Leasing versus buying. 

Sometimes in the evenings, Jack caught Daniel staring at him with a puzzled expression, but when Jack would catch his eye he'd usually mutter something and leave the room. Jack didn't know what to make of it.

Eventually Daniel found a little house that met his short checklist of features, and he signed the lease, and that was that. 

It was going to be lonely without him. But not as lonely as it had been when Daniel had been glowy, Jack kept reminding himself.

Jack took an extra day off, the weekend Daniel moved -- they all did, and with two borrowed trucks, one borrowed trailer, Siler, and Jack's truck, all the furniture was pulled out of storage and installed in the house in one morning's work. After Daniel sprang for pizza for everyone, he and Carter started organizing books and Teal'c began untangling the entertainment center. If you could call it that. Daniel's television was primitive and he had signed up for cable only because Jack insisted. 

Jack decided his contribution would be to get the lawns in shape. The realty company had kept them mowed, sort of, but they were not up to snuff. Especially the hedges. Daniel's allergies would mean he would have to get a lawn crew, but for now Jack could get them off to a good start. 

Leaving the other three to their dust bunnies and flattened boxes, he headed home to quickly change and to load up the mower and the trimmer and the blower. 

He was finishing the hedge along the side yard when Teal'c and Carter came out the front door. They waved at him, and then they were hugging Daniel "goodbye". Jack didn't worry about joining them. He could catch up later. The day was fine, the sun bright, and if he kept after it he would have Daniel's shrubbery in almost as good a shape as his own by happy hour. 

The shadows were starting to lengthen when Daniel came outside. He was carrying two beers. Jack had just about bagged up all the clippings from the hedges. All that was left was sweeping off the driveway and the sidewalk. 

Jack took off his cotton glove, swiped at his forehead with it and accepted the beer. Daniel was frowning. His fingers met Jack's on the cold glass of the bottle, and he didn't let go. Which made Jack frown. 

Daniel looked at their hands, then met Jack's eyes. The brush of his fingers was electric. 

He said, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Tell you what?" Daniel let him have the beer, then, and Jack took a grateful swallow, which Daniel mirrored with his own bottle. Something else that was changed. Daniel rarely drank beer, before. And only dark beer when he did have any. This was Jack's own Heineken. He hadn't expected anyone except maybe Carter to drink any of it. 

"You're right," Daniel said, which didn't make any sense. He was staring at the horizon, and then he took another swig of his beer. And then he did something amazing. He calculatedly looked Jack up and down, the way straight men never did to each other in public. The way Jack had trained himself out of doing years ago. His gaze lingered at Jack's crotch, and at his neck. Jack felt himself flushing under the scrutiny.

"I'm always right," he said, mostly to fill the suddenly crackling silence, and he drank some more beer. 

"No," Daniel said, and there was a hint of a smile, "but this time you are. I didn't share with you the things that would have prompted you to tell me, because I didn't believe them myself at first."

"Tell you what?" Jack said again, trying for casual. 

Daniel put a hand on his arm, and then moved it up and down a little, experimentally. It would have been like a caress, or a pet. Except Daniel didn't do that. 

"Daniel," Jack said, cautiously. 

"I remember," Daniel said, and tightened his hand on Jack's arm. 

"Where you put your keys? Your AOL password? What?"

"Jack," Daniel chided, and he dropped his hand and turned away, leaving Jack standing there in the yard. 

Daniel had... caressed him. Daniel had told him he remembered. Jack drank the rest of his beer in four big, careful swallows, watching Daniel's ass as he slowly, unhurriedly, without looking back, went up to the grass-strewn walk and into the house. And then Jack watched the blank, closed door. And then he finished bagging up the hedge clippings, and set them at the curb, and then he got the leaf blower out of the truck bed and carefully cleared off the sidewalk and the driveway. And then he put the leaf blower and the trimmer and the lawn mower by the stairs to Daniel's back deck, out of sight of the street. And then he stood by the front door and thought about it.

If Daniel was serious.... If Daniel had really remembered.... Jack swallowed hard. Opening himself again to all that emotion, all that vulnerability.... It had nearly killed him when Daniel had pulled away, before. And he'd never had a chance to get it all straight, figure it all out, before Kelowna. He realized he was clenching his fists, and stopped himself. 

If Daniel remembered? 

Jack had started believing in second chances because of him. What were they on now? Their fifth chance? Their sixth? So much pain, so many promises, broken and unkept, held between them, through the years. So much unspoken love. 

If Daniel remembered? Then Jack wouldn't be the only one who did.

The backs of his eyes were stinging when he opened the door. 

He stopped just inside. Daniel had turned on the living room lights, as the evening crept up, and he was standing by the leather sofa, in front of an open box. He had a piece of fabric, some kind of wall hanging, maybe, in his hands. He was looking down at it. It was orange and brown and black. The soft lights from the ceiling spots picked out the brighter colors and the threads of red. Jack leaned back against the front door, and it closed with a noisy crunch of the double lock.

"I've had this ever since Chicago," Daniel said without turning around. "It was over the fireplace, on the wall, in that apartment I had." He dropped the fabric and turned to Jack, hands on his hips. "The apartment I brought you back to, after we met for the first time, before the stargate, in that bar in Wrigleyville. The apartment where we went to bed together for the first time."

Jack's heart was pounding. Daniel's expression was serious, and yet he was talking about it like it was something ordinary, something trivial he'd remembered like a recipe or the directions to the Grand Canyon.

Daniel continued, "Then I didn't see you again for years. So many things must have happened to you in those years. And I still know about only a few of them, and I didn't learn any of it until much, much later. I thought about you often, though. I couldn't help it. It was just one night, but. You were very ... memorable. I'd figured out you were probably married, that same night, but what I learned later...." Daniel shook his head. 

Jack came off the door and walked toward Daniel, slowly, drinking in the sight of him -- the slight duck of his head, his ratty old black T-shirt, probably part of a BDU, his ancient jeans, his bare feet. As he got closer Daniel lifted his chin and let his hands fall to his sides. Jack could see, belying his calm exterior, the big vein beating in the side of his throat. 

_He remembers._

Yeah, a lot of baggage came with that, and maybe Daniel wouldn't be taking this anywhere in particular, maybe he wanted to leave their relationship just exactly where it had been when he ascended, but the relief Jack felt was an overwhelming crash. He hadn't expected to feel this much, at the news that Daniel remembered... the two of them. _Us._ However Daniel was interpreting "us." 

Jack kept coming, and Daniel stood his ground and Jack put his arms around him and hugged him, and dropped his head into the warm hollow of Daniel's shoulder and just felt him, inhaled him.

_Daniel remembers._

Those memories had been a helluva thing to carry alone, Jack was realizing. Shit. He was maybe a little more upset about this than he'd anticipated.

Daniel's hands were resting carefully on Jack's shoulders, and Daniel wasn't pulling away.

Daniel said, his voice a low purr in Jack's ear, "The next time we were together was the night after I deciphered the gate symbols. I didn't even know there _was_ a gate, at that point. But I knew we'd made a breakthrough. You ran into Kawalsky and me in that dump of a bar near Peterson."

"Charlie had taken you shopping for a jacket," Jack mumbled into Daniel's shoulder. His skin was so warm. He was breathing steadily and deeply. He was real. 

"He was very insistent." Daniel's hands were sliding, down and around, hugging Jack close. "Then you and I... We went back to my hotel room." Daniel shivered, just a little, but Jack felt it. "God. It was wonderful."

"Yeah. It was."

"After that mission.... well. The next time we were together..."

"Was the night we got you back. I took you home and I didn't know what would happen, what kind of shape you'd be in."

"I remember."

"Yeah," Jack breathed, and he could do it now, he could release his hold a little and step back and look Daniel in the face. But he didn't let go. He didn't stop touching. 

Daniel's jaw was set and he had tears in his eyes, but he looked okay. His hair was short and his face was more lined with experience and sorrow, but for Jack it could have been yesterday -- that night, after the second Abydos mission, in his own bed, when Daniel and he had clung together and waited for the light. 

"I guess you really do remember," Jack said, squeezing Daniel's shoulder. He wanted to kiss him, so very much. But.

Daniel nodded. 

"So what now?" Jack said, and Daniel was saying it at the same time. They broke apart, laughing. Jack folded his arms, but then had to swipe at his eyes.

Daniel was leaning over the sofa, braced on one arm, laughing. "Shit," he said, and straightened and took off his glasses, letting them dangle from one hand. He turned and sat down heavily beside the cardboard box. Then he leaned back, tilting his head toward the ceiling. His neck stretched out, a gorgeous sweeping curve. Jack put his hands in his pockets and licked his dry lips.

"I could probably use a shower," Jack said, "and I know I could use another beer."

"Beer." Daniel was chuckling as he met Jack's eyes. "Also, it's dinner time. You take a shower, and I'll order some pizza."

"Deal," Jack said, and what was this sparkle, this anticipation, dancing in him, as he watched Daniel's face, drank in every nuance of his expression? Daniel remembered. Daniel knew they'd been lovers. 

Oh. This was what we used to call happiness. 

Jack looked down, knocked his fists together, and headed for the bathroom, snagging his duffel off the floor by the door on the way. Behind him, he heard Daniel on the phone, talking softly to the pizza people. 

Somehow, they talked about nothing over pizza and some red wine Daniel had served, with a knowing, piercing glance at Jack, in actual wine goblets. Well. Not nothing. About the move, the day, Daniel's research into some language, who was the top candidate for the new leader of SG-10. It only seemed like nothing because it was impersonal. They moved a couple of boxes and ate on the coffee table, sitting on the sofa, because the dining table in the little dining room was covered with even more boxes.

When the pizza carton was empty, Daniel scrubbed his fingers with a napkin, wadded it up, took a sip of the wine and set his glass down. He said, "I think I owe you an explanation. And quite possibly an apology. Because at the time I ascended, I had broken us up. And I don't think I was very kind or very thoughtful about it."

Jack scrunched himself into the corner of the sofa, and braced his leg against the coffee table. This would be hard to hear. "You don't owe me anything, Daniel. It was a long time ago. Water under the bridge."

Daniel shook his head. "You might even mean that. But you know that won't cut it if we have any desire to... I'm assuming, perhaps. But..." He stopped abruptly and rubbed his eyes. "I'm going to try to take this one step at a time. I can't jump ahead and assume we can get back together, but--"

Jack was blurting the words before he'd decided to say them, or really, to say anything. "I still love you, Daniel." He'd pushed himself as far back in the corner of the couch as he could get, and his hands were in his armpits. He realized how vulnerable he felt. How no one else, ever, had made him feel like this. Wide open. It was scary. He wanted to protect himself. And yet, the last thing he wanted was for Daniel to shut down on him now.

Daniel had jerked upright at his words. "Thank you," he said. "That means a lot." 

A silence fell. Daniel was staring into space; Jack stared at Daniel's hands -- those long-fingered, restless hands. Daniel was breathing hard.

"Look," Jack said. He could do this. He could talk. "I didn't want to break up. That was all you. You were fucked up, you'd lost Sha're, you had a lot of guilt. It was killing you. You felt so bad you started questioning your value to the program, undercutting yourself all over the place."

Daniel looked at him sidelong. He looked rueful, and surprised. Did he not realize Jack had figured some of it out? Jack said, "Yeah, well. I had a lot of time to think, last year."

Daniel got up and began to pace. The distance let Jack exhale, let him uncoil himself, relax a little. Put both feet on the floor. Drink a little more wine. 

Pacing, Daniel said, "I'm sorry. I hurt you terribly, and for such selfish reasons. I handled it all very badly. If I hadn't stumbled into that lab accident on Kelowna, I don't know what would have happened. Hopefully I would have come to my senses."

"Yeah, well. I've never been a big fan of worrying about the road not taken, you know?"

"I know." Daniel stopped short, obviously thinking hard. He pushed at his glasses, folded his arms, unfolded them. He took a step, stopped, then took a deep breath and came right over to Jack. His determined approach made Jack stand up. "I want to kiss you," Daniel said. "May I?"

Jack put his arms around him and put his mouth to Daniel's. He figured that would do as a "yes."

It was careful, and warm, and incendiary. It was all Jack could do not to grind his hips against Daniel's, or shove him down on the sofa right there. It was a lot of pent up demand, a lot of thwarted emotion. He determinedly hung back, let Daniel control the kiss once he'd started it.

It was everything he remembered. Daniel's satiny lips, his restless hands, the press of his muscular body. Jack freed his lips and held him close again, putting his cheek against Daniel's. "God," he said. 

"I'm so sorry," Daniel said, holding him just as close, and something dark and huge rose up inside Jack, roaring in him like a forest fire.

"Fuck that," he said, and he took Daniel's face in his two hands and kissed him again, using his tongue, pushing hard, and Daniel took it, and then began pushing back. They struggled together. Jack tilted his head away and took a breath. "Fuck all that," he said. "You're back. You're here. That's--"

Daniel interrupted him by claiming his mouth again, and for a long breathless time there was just the kissing, and the pressing of hands, and this time Daniel let his hands roam farther -- touched Jack, cupped his ass with one hand, traced his cheek and his ear with the other, threaded fingers through Jack's too-long hair, and Jack crushed him close and let it all happen. 

When Daniel released his mouth, Jack said, "Why are we not in bed?"

And Daniel said, "I have no idea," and then they were moving, bumping each other, bumping walls, stopping to kiss again, to grab again.

"You're okay with this now," Daniel tried to ask, halfway down the hall.

"Christ, yes, I was always okay with this," Jack ground out.

And then they were in Daniel's bedroom. They stripped quickly, and Daniel got down to skin quicker than Jack, because he had a couple fewer items of clothes on, so when Jack straightened from pushing down his jeans and underwear, it was to see Daniel, barefaced, reaching for him and pulling him down onto the mattress. The bedroom was full of boxes and the bed wasn't made. It wasn't a regular bed; it was some strange nonstandard size, bigger than a twin (thank God), smaller than the double in Jack's guest room. 

"Cozy," Jack said, and Daniel laughed. 

All that warm skin. Jack closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around Daniel and there was kissing again, lots of kissing, Daniel's warm, alive mouth, and then Daniel had a hand between them and he was keeping the kissing going and just touching -- not really trying to stroke Jack's dick in any organized way, just touching, exploring. 

The idea of Daniel, exploring, made Jack smile. Daniel felt it and smiled back and pulled away a little to look at Jack's face. Jack put a hand up and cupped his cheek. 

They had gotten here. Daniel remembered, and Jack remembered too, remembered everything -- how they felt together, the curve of Daniel's shoulder, the texture of his skin, the scent of him, the taste of him. Jack wound an arm around Daniel's neck and kissed him again. Things seemed to slow down, inside that kiss, and when their mouths separated, Jack realized Daniel's touch on his dick had grown languid and delicate. Daniel's eyes were closed and he wasn't moving much at all, but still holding Jack close with his other arm. Jack ran a hand down his back, caressed his ass, came back up. Did it again. Kissed him again, briefly this time, just a shallow press of lips. The glimmer of stubble along his jaw. The brush of his lashes on his cheek. The crow's feet. Jack ran his hand all the way up and ruffled Daniel's hair. Daniel's fingers on his dick felt exquisite. Still gazing at Daniel's face, he reached down and caressed the backs of Daniel's fingers, then wormed his way in beside Daniel's hand to find Daniel's hard dick. When his hand closed around it, Daniel inhaled sharply and opened his eyes. Another breathtaking kiss, and then Daniel said, "I didn't plan for this. I didn't realize I would know that... I don't have any condoms, I don't have anything ready. I just..."

Jack kissed him again. "It's okay. I don't care. Anything we do is going to be good."

Daniel nodded. He was the most beautiful thing Jack had ever seen, lying there among the mismatched pillows, his hair mussed, his color high. Jack was as aroused as he ever remembered being -- it had been a long, long dry spell, and these days he didn't even bother jerking off very much, but Daniel made him incredibly hard. Despite that he felt no sense of urgency. Just a billowing excitement, wrapped in wonder. Being here was enough.

Jack got a little lost in Daniel's gaze, in reacquainting himself with how Daniel looked, like this, open, so near. Beside him. With him. 

And then Daniel was maneuvering him, pushing him onto his back, then pushing a little at his upper arms, urging Jack to scooch up on the mattress. Daniel straddled his legs, and as soon as he was kneeling up there he returned to his caressing attention of Jack's cock. Jack drank him in, looking him up and down, his wide chest (yeah, all those workouts were showing), his narrow waist and well-developed quads, Jack's own hand exploring the contours of Daniel's dick. Then Daniel acquired a knowing smile and started edging down. 

"God, yes," Jack said, figuring out where Daniel was headed. Daniel took his time, though, reacquainting himself with Jack, in his turn, looking at his chest, his arms, running fingers through his hair, but all the time easing backward until he could get the angle he wanted. "I haven't been with anybody," Jack managed to say, watching Daniel's mouth as he leaned down and down. "Nobody at all."

When Daniel spoke Jack could feel his breath on the tip of his cock. "And I haven't either. This body is effectively virgin. So we're good, I think."

Any answer Jack would have made was consumed in the groan he let out when Daniel put his warm lips to the head. 

At intervals Jack had to lift his head, with great effort, and watch. Daniel was in no hurry, licking and swirling, then taking him deep, or pulling off to deliver more of those feathery caresses with his fingers while moving his head lower to kiss and lick at Jack's balls. Everything he did was driving Jack crazy. Jack put his hands on any parts of Daniel he could reach, and just spread his legs and gave himself over to it. Toward the end he was lying back, pillow vanished somewhere in the melee, his hips straining up into Daniel's grip, and then he was calling Daniel's name and coming hard, trying to stop himself from holding on too tightly to Daniel's head, but probably failing. It was whiteout. It was ecstasy. He raised his head, straining, shaking, to see Daniel's mouth still engulfing him, Daniel's eyes closed, his face peaceful, and then Daniel pulled gently, gently free, and he was beside Jack, pulling him close, his hand slipping a little on Jack's sweaty shoulder, and Jack dissolved into the afterglow for a bit. 

"Daniel," he said, and when his arms would work he pulled Daniel close. His body was as alert as Jack's was relaxed. His dick was hard and warm, pushing at Jack's thigh. He found a place to settle, though, and seemed to be willing to wait as long as Jack wanted to. His forehead came against Jack's neck, and his lips along Jack's collar bone sent goosebumps up and down Jack's side and shoulder. "Daniel," Jack said, again, not asking for anything, not needing a response in words, simply wanting to feel that name in his mouth and the body that went with it in his arms. 

Pretty soon Jack turned enough to get his face against Daniel's and kiss him some more. They weren't done yet. Jack wasn't sure what Daniel would want, but he remembered that first time they had been together. That first time in Daniel's little dingy place, back home in Chicago. 

"Surely," he said between kisses, "you have something that would work. Salad oil, vaseline, something."

"Stop calling me--" but Jack kissed him before he could finish the stupid joke, and Daniel, laughing, pulled back to look at him. "You'd be ready for that?" 

"Like I said. Anything. Plus, hey, you're doing all the work so far. Great job. Keep it up." 

"But the bathroom's so far away," Daniel said, mock reluctant, and Jack slapped him gently on the ass in an encouraging manner, then lingered to smooth his palm over the spot. Damn, Daniel felt good. How could this be happening? But it was. 

Daniel kissed him again. "Be right back," he said, and then he rolled aside and got up. Jack watched him out the door, and stayed there, propped up on his elbow, his arousal entirely satisfied for the time being, but still feeling gripped by amazement and delight, and a bubbling feeling of love that grew stronger by the minute.

Daniel came back with a towel and a tin, and Jack grinned at him and fumbled around for the pillows. Sheesh, there weren't even pillow cases on them yet. 

Then Daniel was on the bed again, between Jack's legs. His erection hadn't gone down much. Jack reached for it, gently, and Daniel closed his eyes. Jack reached with his other hand and eased Daniel's glasses off, putting them on top of the cardboard box on the nightstand. Then he leaned back and bent his knees, still caressing. 

"You look amazing," Daniel breathed, and, holding Jack's gaze, pushed a finger in, then two. Warmth bloomed, starting from Jack's groin, spreading like wildfire. In seconds he was hot again, all over, his lips pounding, his face flushed. He gripped Daniel's shoulder. Daniel looked so intense, so poised. Daniel's dick was fully hard again. Liquid welled from the tip. 

"Jack," Daniel said, and then his hand was gone and they were moving together, Daniel bracing Jack's knees, Jack holding him until he was solidly aimed. Daniel kept saying his name into the pillow under Jack's shoulder as he pressed in. 

Jack had only done this after his own orgasm a handful of times, and only with Daniel. It was so different to feel this after he'd already come -- it was just as pleasurable, but the sensations were more spread out. More diffused. Less of a wild rush toward climax and more of a spreading buzz that he felt in his entire body.

He tightened his arms around Daniel and found a place to rest one heel. 

God. Daniel.

Daniel was moving carefully, but he was breathing hard and the more Jack encouraged, the harder his strokes became. It seemed as if there was no way Jack was going to come again -- Daniel had pretty much stunned him, a few minutes ago -- but it didn't matter. It felt so good -- the deep connection, the press of all that skin, the long-neglected nerve endings lighting up. Daniel. Close again, as close as he could get. Here. With Jack. 

"I've got you," Jack murmured, and held on tight. 

"Ah," Daniel said, clenching, "I don't-- It's too good, I wanted--" And then his words dissolved into a moan, and he was seizing, shaking, coming inside Jack with strong pulses of his cock that Jack's muscles absorbed in delicious waves. 

Daniel held there, inside him, pressing against him, for a long time. As he quieted and his breathing slowed, Jack could feel his heart beating, and that made his eyes burn again and his fingers tighten. Daniel was still hard, still stretching him.

Jack felt more aware and alive than he had in months. He watched the light fade from the ceiling, heard the slow ticks of the little house starting to cool. The refrigerator kicked on in the distant kitchen. A bird called outside, heading home, rounding up his buddies. Daniel let more of his weight settle against Jack, and then unexpectedly a shift of his pelvis, or perhaps a mis-timed squeeze from Jack, caused him to slide out, and they both flinched. 

"Like I said," Daniel said, fumbling for the towel, "I didn't plan for this."

"It doesn't matter, except if you're worried about the mattress," Jack said.

"Oh, fuck the mattress," Daniel said, and his smile was like a sunrise. 

They cleaned up a little, scrubbed at the bed, gave it up for a lost cause for the moment, and ended up sitting on the edge. Daniel pitched the towel into a corner and hooked his knee over Jack's, and Jack put his arm around Daniel's waist. _He must feel it too,_ Jack thought -- the desire to stay connected, to keep touching. 

"Will you stay here tonight?" Daniel said. 

"I'd love to." 

Daniel leaned back a little, wanting to see Jack's face, and meet his eyes.  
"I remember a lot now, but the most important thing I remember is that I love you. I loved you before, I love you now, and I should have said it a long time ago."

"We both should have," Jack said, and put his hand to Daniel's cheek, and leaned in for another kiss. Daniel returned it, and it felt like a seal, like a promise.

"Okay then," Daniel said. "I don't have the best track record here, but I want to do this, to try to be with you, as hard as it may turn out to be."

"Me too," Jack said. "I hope I made that perfectly clear."

"You have," Daniel said. "I'm not sure I entirely understand why, but I believe you."

"You'd better," Jack said, and kissed him again.

In a while, they would find the sheets in some remote mis-labeled box, and they would make the bed, maybe have another shower, brew some coffee. And morning would come, and Daniel would be here, be at home, with Jack beside him -- also home, because home was with Daniel. 

The End


End file.
